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_ SOURCES AND STUDIES 


EDITED BY 


_-‘- JAMES T. SHOTWELL 
: Fes _ PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION 
SOURCES AND STUDIES 


Edited by 
JAMES T. SHOTWELL 


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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 


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Lonpon: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
Amen Hovss, E.C. 


THE SEE OF PETER 


BY 


JAMES T. SHOTWELL, Pu.D., LL.D. 


PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


AND 


LOUISE ROPES LOOMIS, Pu.D. 


PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN WELLS COLLEGE 


Jew Bork 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1927 


THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORW 


- 


p alt 


By Cotumpra University Pre 


ga ae 
ae 


Oh if 


a 


OOD M. 


EDITOR’S PREFACE 


The series of which this volume forms a part was planned with ref- 
erence to a definite need. The growing pressure of the present, which is 
transforming the outlook of our time by its unprecedented challenge to 
intelligence, is also making more and more rare in our colleges and uni- 
versities the adequate training in those implements of research which 
the historian must use if he is to come into direct contact with the past. 
It is unnecessary here to discuss the advantages or disadvantages of this 
drift in education away from the old disciplines. The present age is 
determined to test the values of its more immediate interests; and cer- 
tainly the scientist has as good a case for regarding as uneducated the 
man who does not know the rudiments of the laws of physics, as the 
historian has for regretting current ignorance on the history of the me- 
dieval Papacy. Without entering into this controversy, it may be said 
that the present series was based upon a recognition of the undoubted 
fact that something should be done within the field of history to the end 
that the present tendency toward the study of scientific and contempo- 
rary subjects should not result in a complete loss of contact with the 
original sources from which our knowledge of the past is derived. 
Therefore it was decided to prepare a number of translations of impor- 
tant documents, not otherwise easily accessible, sometimes 7m extenso, 
sometimes only as far as they were pertinent to the subject in hand. 
In other volumes, as in the present one, an anthology of quotations was 
to trace the documentary outlines of the great historical themes. Then, 
alongside these translations, a number of guides and studies were to 
assist the student in fields where the material already exists in greater 
or less abundance, but where he might still find useful the suggestions of 
recent scholarship, as in the case of Professor Bewer’s Literature of the 
Old Testament, or a richly equipped bibliographical apparatus opening 
up a field as yet almost undeveloped by historical workers, as in Pro- 
fessor Williams’ Guide to the Printed Material for English Social and 
Economic History. 

The series was purposely planned to serve as a sort of historical mis- 
cellany extending over many fields, on the ground that it would fail of 
its purpose if it were held strictly within the orthodox lines of history 

Vv 


vi EDITOR’S PREFACE 


proper. While it still pays most attention to the documentation of sub- 
jects included in ordinary historical instruction, it recognizes the legiti- 
macy of historical inquiry in other fields, more especially in those of 
science itself. It reaches down even to contemporary history, with con- 
tributions to the investigation of modern problems for which the vital 
documents have been hitherto inaccessible. 

The place of the present volume in this series needs no explanation. 
It is a strange, almost an incredible fact, that no such collection has yet 
been made, in English at least, of the texts on which the historical — as 
distinguished from the other — claims of the Papacy rest. Indeed there 
is only one anthology of the originals which is anything like adequate, 
the collection of the German scholar, Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des 
Papsttums. The fact that this anthology has gone through several edi- 
tions shows how useful such a volume is for students of Church history. 
Yet even the Mirbt collection gives but the barest fragments of these . 
original texts, and can be used only by those who can then proceed to 
work out the setting of the citations by further reading in the literature 
of the period. 

The present volume first took shape along similar lines, but has since 
become something quite different. It grew out of a seminar in medieval 
history conducted by the Editor of this series almost twenty years ago. 
The plan then was to make a guide which, within the compass of some- 
what less than the size of the present volume, would cover the entire 
field of papal history down to Gregory VII, in the eleventh century. It 
was to have been a book of readings, similar to others already in use in 
American colleges. A considerable amount of material was prepared 
with this end in view, and some of the pertinent bibliographical appara- 
tus added thereto, when with the outbreak of the World War all work 
upon it was interrupted. Fortunately, however, the Editor was able to 
enlist the interest of Professor Loomis, who had already contributed the 
translation of the Liber Pontificalis to this series, and to her is due the 
transformation of what was to be little more than an anthology of texts, 
with short editorial comment, into a volume which covers a more limited 
period of time but gives a much fuller selection of texts for that period 
and, in addition to these, discussions which carry the reader some dis- 
tance beyond the documents into the obscure but vital lines of history 
which they illustrate. For the latter part of the volume as it stands, 
the credit should go to Dr. Loomis, and she shares as well the respon- 
sibility for much of the earlier part. The translations of texts have been 
revised by her or else made new. For this codperation which has made 


EDITOR’S PREFACE vii 


the completion of this volume possible, a codperation carried through 
in the face of serious and protracted illness, the present writer would 
express his grateful recognition. Wherever the volume falls short, the 
blame may rest upon the shoulders of the Editor who could give to its 
final form only the fragments of leisure stolen from other occupations. 
To others who have contributed to make the work possible, in particular 
‘to Professor Harold H. Tryon and Professor Preserved Smith who read 
and criticized portions of the manuscript, and to Harriet J. Church to 
whom the volume owes its index, the authors are much indebted. 


JAMES T. SHOTWELL 


CONTENTS 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


BOOK I THE PETRINE TRADITION 
PART I NEW TESTAMENT TEXTS 


INTRODUCTION . 
1. JESUS AND PETER . 

THE GOSPEL OF MarK . 
The Call . 
The Twelve . 
Peter’s Confession ? 
The Inner Group and the Priests of Brecedene * 
Peter’s Denial and the Resurrection 

THE GosPEL OF MATTHEW 
The Call . 
The Twelve . ‘ 
Peter’s Confession, — Reise the Rede 


The Question of Precedence and the Apostolic Sieeaicn ; 


THE GOSPEL OF LUKE . 
The Call . 
The Twelve and the Seen 
Peter’s Confession : 
The Question of Precedence 
The Apostles after the Resurrection 
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN . 
The Call . 
Peter’s Confession 
The Apostolic Succession . 
The Pastoral Charge . 


2. PETER AND THE OTHER APOSTLES . Zé 
THE EVIDENCE OF THE ACTS OF THE MGasties : 
THE EVIDENCE OF THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. . ... © 
THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE. . . « « « 


3. PETER IN ROME AND THE FOUNDING OF THE ROMAN CHURCH . 


ix 


x CONTENTS 


PAGE 


PART II THE TRADITION ACCEPTED AS HISTORICAL 
INTRODUCTION... 200. 62) 3 a ee a 
1, PETER THE PREACHER AT ROME . 9. . .° {>> pe 
Clement of Rome (c. 96)... 9...) 9 


To the Corinthians, 5 and 6. 

The Ascension of Isatah {75-100))s 0). . 0 a 
Ascension of Isaiah, IV. 

Ignatius of Antioch (c. 116) .°. . 2°. 2 er 
To the Romans, 4. 

Phlegon (fi. 117-138) 2 16 ss 0 ee 
Origen, Against Celsus, II, 14. 

Papias of -Hierapolis. (fl. c,.120) .° 2 2) 2) yp 

Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170) . MPM ree i 
Eusebius, Church History, II, Pe 

Irenaeus of Asia and Gaul (c. 130-¢: 200) . 4). ape 
Against Heresies, III, 1, 3. 

Clement of Alexandria (fl. 190-215) . . peas f. 
Hypotyposes (Eusebius, Church History, Il, Ls; VI, ae 
Stromata, III, 6; VII, 11. 


2. PETER THE ROMAN MARTYR. ~. 0.2 °. 6 6 

Caius of Rome (fl; 190-217) ©... °.) 5°. 
Eusebius, Church History, II, 25. 

Tertullian of Carthage (c. 160-c. 235) . . 15, (sysname ee 
The Prescription of Heretics, 32, 36; 
Against Marcion, IV, 5; 
Baptism, 4. 

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-c. 254) . . dee SB 
On Genesis, III (Eusebius, Church History, II, clic 
On Matthew, I (Eusebius, Church History, VI, 25). 

Porphyry of Tyre (?) (c. 230-c. 300) . . . EP ee Or 
Macarius Magnes, The Only-Begotten, III, 22; IV, 4. 

Peter of Alexandria (d::311) -... -. :. (pipe 
Canonical Epistle, canon IX. 

Lactantius. ‘of Africa (fL 310) «©. 5°. * oP ee 
The Divine Institutes, IV, 21; 
The Deaths of Persecutors, 2 


3. PETER THE FOUNDER OF THE ROMAN EPISCOPATE . ... . - 96 


Eusebius of Caesarea’ (c. 265—c. 340) ° 2°. 2 Speen ee 
Chronicle ; 
Church History, III, 4: 1, 2, 9; 13; 36: 2. 


CONTENTS 


Liber Pontificalis (fourth century source) 
Book of the Popes, Silvester. 
Chronographer of 354 : 
The Liberian Catalogue, Peters 
Calendar of the Roman Chikch 
Damasus of Rome (bishop from 366 to 384) 
Inscription, in the Platonia. 
Optatus of Mileve (c. 370) 
The Donatist Schism, II, 2-3. 
Jerome, (c. 335-420) ; 
Illustrious Men, I and V; 
Chronicle. 


Prudentius (348-c. 410) 


Crowns, Hymn XII: On the Pasay i Peter WS gy ith 


PART III THE APOCRYPHAL TRADITION 
INTRODUCTION . ye RO EE 8 
1. BEGINNINGS OF THE SIMON Macus LEGEND 


Suetonius (fl. c. 95-120) i 
Lives of the Caesars, Nero, c. 12. 
Justin Martyr (d. c. 165) 
First Apology, c. 26. 
Irenaeus (c. 130-C. 200) s 
Against Heresies, I, 23, 1 and 4. 
Tertullian (c. 160-c. 235) 
Defense against the Pagans, c. 13; 
Prescription of Heretics, c. 33. « 
Hippolytus (d. 236) 
Refutation of All Heresies, VI, 2 Rea 1%: 


2. THe LEGEND OF PETER AND SIMON (180-220) 


The Acts of Peter with Simon . 


3. REFERENCES TO THE PETRINE LEGEND IN THIRD CENTURY LITERA- 


TURE 
(4. C22 FO : 
A Poem of Defense, lines pecan 
Arnobius (fl. 284-305) 
Against the Pagans, II, 12. 


Teachings of the Apostles (third century), cc. v, ix, xxiv . 
Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena (third century), xxiv . 


Xl 
PAGE 


102 


104 


108 
IIO 


II2 


II7 


120 
127 
130 
130 


131 


131 


132 


133 
136 


153 
155 


156 


156 
158 


xii CONTENTS 
PAGE 
4. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PETRINE LEGEND DURING THE THIRD 
CENTURY 6s’ '6 8 0 0) 6 eg el ee 
Rufinus (¢..305)... .« «6 6) 6) eo ees te gn 
Preface to the Recognitions. 

Pseudo-Clement (Third Century). <<) 0 30) 
Letter to James, 1-19; 
The Recognitions, I passim; III passim. 

5. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGEND DURING THE FOURTH AND FIFTH 
CENTURIES. . Pee ib Gs 98 
The Martyrdom of ‘he eens Apostles ‘Pais we Poul yy place fel 
The Acis of Peter and Paul... 3... ee 


6. REFERENCES TO THE PETRINE LEGEND BY THE FATHERS OF THE 
FouRTH AND FirtH CENTURIES «<0 °.) 005 717 90%, ©) 
Eusebius (c. 265-c. 340) .. . wewge! 82 aCe a 

Church History, II, 13: 1, 2,6; 14: bar 
Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315—c. 386) ©. : i =p 
Sermons to Catechumens, VI, 14, 15. 


Ambrose (c. 340-397). . . 191 
Sermon against Auxentius: On ay Susvonee of is Church. 
13; 


On the Six Days, IV, 8. 

Philaster of Brescia (d. before 397) . . . « «, sis eeuenenele 
The Book of Divers Heresies, 29. 

Epiphanius of Cyprus, (c. 315-403)... °. s/s) 1a) tse 
Against Heresies, XXI, 1, 5. 

Sulpicius Severus (c. 363-C. 425)... .« © 5 ‘sane 
Chronicles, II, 28, 4-5; 20,, 3-4. 

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) . . « % » ss iueienenias 
Heresies, I, 1; 
Letters, XXXVI, ix, 21-22. 


Theodoret of Cyrus’ (c. 393-458). . <2. «6 (so rennian ne 
A Compendium of Heretical Tales, I. 


7. LATER ELABORATIONS OF THE LEGEND . . 196 
The Constitutions of the Apostles (fourth ¢ or fifth century) VI, 
Ge Viable 201 
The Martyrdom of the Biesen Apésie Peter as 5 Renee 
Linus, the Bishop (fourth or fifth century) . . . . . . 203 


The Acts of Nereus and Achilleus (fifth or sixth century) IV, 14 204 
The Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul (sixth or seventh 
century) . 5 3 6 8 8 ee ee ee ener 


CONTENTS xiii 


8. RELICS IN EVIDENCE OF THE LEGEND 
Creuory Of Lours (late sixth century) .9. 2°. 26). ke 206 
The Glory of the Martyrs, I, 28. 
eee S767) C8 Re Rk NIA! . 906 
Life of Pope Paul I. 
menedict,, Canon of St. Peter (1130-1143) 0. 0... 207 
The Roman Order of Service, V. 


MMIC S70 Le, ey Se es se ee ew) BOT 
Letter to Philip of Vitry. 


BOOK II THE RISE OF THE SEE 


INTRODUCTION ... 211 
PART I THE BISHOPRIC OF THE ROMAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH 


1. THE BENEVOLENCE OF THE RoMAN CHURCH ...... . 235 
Cement) (fl e296) os. GAs BIG. 55 85 
To the Corinthians, 1, 42, 44, Hes Ah ae 
Meme eee martioch (6.2076), 107 er SE wie es 239 
To the People of Smyrna, 8; 
To the Romans, 1, 3, 4, 9, 10. 
CMEC NS, LEO) Os Cacho \-ocbeid pug eh tk swine ea 
The Shepherd, Vision Il, 4. 


2. THE TRADITION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH... ...... . 245 
Anicetus (c. 154-c. 165) . . . coat. suds 2h we Se eee ceeek tx) SAS 
Eusebius, Church History, V, a 
Hegesippus of Syria (fl. c. 160-c.175) . . . .« « « « « « 248 
Eusebius, Church History, IV, 22, 1-3. 
Soter, (c. 166-c. 174)... . SWhalee kh. aie ena e 
Eusebius, Church History, IV, 23: 9-11; 
Soter (?) To the Corinthians, i, v, xii, xviii, xix. 
Eleutherus (c. 175-c. 188) . .. . Sea LG cass 
Tertullian, The Prescription of berber oe 
Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 1; 
Eusebius, Church History, V, 3, 43 4, I, 2. : 
EEOC L200. 200) <0. i.e) init ois ea awa cian | tae aia 1 DON 
Against Heresies, III, 1-4. 
Clement of’ Alexandria, (ci 190-c. 215) 6 6 5 6) ew ws. 293 
Eusebius, Church History, Il, 1, 3, 4. 
3. THe AUTHORITY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH . .. 2. - 2 « + 2974 
Victor (c. 188-c. 198). . . ek “erie teva a7a 
Eusebius, Church History, V, 28, abe ae 


XIV CONTENTS 


PART II THE CLAIM TO THE POWER OF PETER | 
1. THE ASSERTION OF THE CLAIM ©.) 3 |) (cee ss 

Tertullian of Carthage (c. 160-235) . .. . +) ee ee geo 
The Prescription of Heretics, 17, 19-23, 32, a 
Against Marcion, IV, 13; 
An Antidote against Scorpions, X. 

Zephyrinus (198-217) and Callistus I (217-222) . . .. . 205 
Tertullian, Modesty, 1; 21 
Hippolytus, A Refutation of All Heresies, IX, 2, 5-7. 


2.. THE CASE OF ORIGEN 2°) 2) 6 4) 0) 31) puree 


Pontianus (230-235) . . MP er Tr ret ee 
Jerome, Letters, XX XIII, To Pie 
Fabianus (236-250) . . ; Rear miet grits tt 


Eusebius, Church History, VL 2 2-43 VI, ib ee 
Jerome, Letters, LXXXIV, To Pammachius and Oceanus. 
Origen of Alexandria (c. 185—c. 254): "a0 = oe 
Eusebius, Church History, VI, 14, 10; 
Origen, On Matthew, XII, 10, 11, 14. 


3. THE COOPERATION OF ROME AND CARTHAGE. . . . « « « « 322 
Cyprian of Carthage-(c; 200-258) 7°) 2 
The Unity of the Catholic Church, 4-6, 17; 
Letters, III, 3; XX XIII, 1; LXVI, 8, to. 
The Vacancy in the Roman Bishopric (spring of 250-spring 
Of 251) 6 ue ee el 0 cP pee ae 
Cyprian, Letters, VIII, IX, XX, XXVII, XXX, XXXI, 
XXXII, XXXV, XXXVI, XLII. 
Comelius (251-253) . . 348 
Cyprian, Letters, XLIV, XLV, “XLVI, XLVI, XLVII, XLIX, 
L, LU, LIT, LIV, LV, LIX; 
Eusebius, Church History, VI, 43, I-12, 21; 46, 1-4; 
Cyprian, Letters, LVII, LX. 


Lucius (253-254) . « « « |. w))alehcte eta a) aeanantnemnn enn 
Cyprian, Letters, LXI. 


4. THE REASSERTION OF THE CLAIM ~ 6" 2 Scae) ie ee 
Stephen (254-257) . . aor 
Cyprian, Letters, LXVIIL, LXVIL, LXX, LXXI, LXXIL, 
LXXIII, LXXIV; 
Third Council of eee Acts ; 
Cyprian, Letters, LXXV; 
Eusebius, Church History, VII, 2-5. 


CONTENTS XV 
PAGE 
Mvstus I] (257-258)... -. =. ee eset e 1 AGO 
Eusebius, Church History, VII, a 3- a Q, I- sod 
Cyprian, Letters, LXXX. 


Webishop of the Third Century at Rome... . . ... . 428 
Sermon, On Gamblers, 1-3. 


Pee ee eeOWie OF JURISDICTION. 0) 6. ese s ee ak we tw | 429 

Dionysius I(259-268) . . . . takin tented. 429 
Athanasius, The Judgments of py eeS cz: 
Athanasius, The Decrees of the Synod of Nicaea, 25-26; 
Eusebius, Church History, VII, 30, 1-5, 17. 

Felix I (268-274) . . a cunts dicots Galea 40 
Eusebius, Church Ears. VI, 20; ee 10; 
Felix I, Fragment of a letter to Bishop Maximus and the 

clergy of Alexandria. 


6. THE OBSCURE PERIOD .. ee ike Be alr s cee wae AAS 
_Eutychianus to Eusebius a 5-3 ee Sagat, eRe oe. 
_ Augustine, The Only Baptism: Against Pein. fy ae 
Damasus, /uscription, over the tomb of Marcellus; 
Damasus, /nscription, over the tomb of Eusebius. 


PART III THE SUPREME BISHOPRIC OF THE UNIVERSAL 
CHURCH 
NY as is a ay 102 ehhh.) ds’ Gos mee we elvak « AQS 
See Se iA AL ROME! ish % oc eh acne elite et eMart s ASA 
Constantine, Letter to Caecilian; 
Anulinus, Letter to Constantine ; 
Constantine, Letter to Miltiades ; 
Optatus of Mileve, The Donatist Schism, I, 22-24; 
Augustine, A Brief Discussion with the Donatists, XII; 
Augustine, Letters, XLIII, v, 16; | 
Optatus of Mileve, The Donatist Schism, I, 26. 


SILVESTER (314-335) . . bie om AR « sear coheteat eae St AOD 
Vee The Donatists and the ST of nepal, coe Ree aS Leg Mee aaaei Le 
Constantine, Letter to Chrestus of Syracuse; 
Constantine, Letter to Aelafius ; 
Council of Arles, Synodical Letter to Silvester ; 
Council of Arles, Canons, I, VIII, XIII, XIX; 
Augustine, Letters, CV, 8. 
2. The Arian Question and the Council of Nicaea . . . .. . . 484 
Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III, 5, 6 
Council of Nicaea, Canons, VI and VII; 


XVI CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Council of Nicaea, Synodical Letter to the Alexandrians ; 
Constantine, Letter to the Church of Alexandria. 


Juuius I (337-352) . 

1. The Appeal of Atha a irons ; 
Athanasius, A Defense against the Arians, 20; 
Sozomen, Church History, III, 7-8; 

Julius, Letter to the Eusebian Bishops at Antioch. 


2. The Council of Sardica and the Schism over the Jurisdiction of 
Romereicin « ‘ 
Sozomen, Chivich Hoe IIL, - 10-12; 
Council of Sardica, Canons, III, IV, v, X; 
The Eastern Bishops at Sardica, Encyclical Letter ; 
Council of Sardica, Letter to Julius at Rome. 


3. The Triumph of Rome : 
Socrates, Church History, II, Ay 
Athanasius, A Defense against the Arians, 58; 
Ursacius and Valens, Confession; 
Athanasius, History of the Arians, 29. 


\e 


LIBERIUS (352-366) . : 
1. The Coming of Persecution . 

Liberius, Letter to Hosius ; 
Liberius, Letters, III and VI, to Eusebius; 
Liberius, Letter to Constantius ; 
Lucifer, Pancratius and Hilary, Letter to Eusebius; 
Hilary, To Constantius, I, 3; 
Athanasius, History of the Arians, 33, 34, 76; 
Liberius, Letter to the Exiled Bishops. 


2. The Banishment of Liberius 
Ammianus Marcellinus, History, XV, ie 
Athanasius, History of the Arians, 3 ee 
Theodoret, Church History, II, 13; 
Athanasius, History of the Arians, 75. 


3. The Protest against Imperial Interference inthe Church . . . 
Hosius, Letter to Constantius. 


4. The Apostasy of Liberius . . . se 
The Relations between Bishop iiberias and Bishop F elie, Us ; 
Theodoret, Church History, II, 14; 

Liberius, Letters in Exile ; 
Athanasius, History of the Arians, 41; 
Sozomen, Church History, IV, 15. 


488 
503 


516 


530 


534 
556 


568 


577 


580 


ee 


Securing ee 


CONTENTS 


5. The Orthodox Faith of Peter 


Hilary, Commentary on Matthew, XVI, io 
Hilary, The Trinity, VI, 37. 


6. The Return of Liberius to Orthodox Leadership 


Liberius, Letter to the Bishops in Italy; 
Socrates, Church History, IV, 12. 


Damasus (366-384) 


at 


i. Damasus and the Clergy af Rome Sa mag 


ii. Damasus and the Western Churches outside Italy . 
iii. Damasus and the Churches of the East 
The Dispute over Liberius’ Successor 
Socrates, Church History, IV, 20; 
The Relations between Bishop Liberius and Bishop Felix, 2-3; 
Ammianus Marcellinus, History, XXVII, 3, 12-15; 
Valens, Valentinian I and Gratian, Rescript of 370 to Damasus. 


. The Eastern Appeal for Western Help 
Roman Synod of c. 370, Letter to the Eastern Bishops: 
Basil, Letters, LXVI, LXVII, LXVIII, LXIX, LXX, LXXXIX, 
Meet ACT CXX; CXXIX, CXXXVIII, CLVI; 
Damasus, Letters, III; 
Basil, Letters, CCXIV, CCXV, CCXXXIX,CCXLII, CCXLIII, 
CCLITI, CCLXITI, CCLXV, CCLXVI. 


. The Eastern Faith in Peter 
Jerome, Letters, XV and XVI, to pepaaiee 
The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles ; 
Ephraim the Syrian, Comments on Peter; 
Ephraim the Syrian, Hymns and Sermons. 


. The Imperial Confirmation of Roman Jurisdiction : 
Roman Synod of 378, Address to the Emperors Ceonen Bee 
Valentinian IT ; 
Gratian and Valentinian II, Rescript of 378. 


. The Faith of Rome Prescribed as the Standard for the East 


Damasus, Letter to the Eastern Bishops; 
Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius, Edict of 380; 
Theodoret, Church History, V, 2-3. 


The Council of grea and the Revival of Eastern 
Separatism . 
Damasus, Letters, V ana VI: 
Gregory of Nazianzus, Dees II, 2, xi, Song of his own Life 
(anny, 11, 562 ff: 
Council of Constantinople of 381, Canons, II and III; 
Theodoret, Church History, V, 8-9. 


XVil 
PAGE 
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590 


595 


599 
608 


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629 


634 


658 


666 


673 


677 


XVill CONTENTS 


PAGE 
7. The Rule of Damasus in the West. . + 2°) iy “7 
Marcellinus and Faustinus, The Confession of the True Faith, 
77-85; 
Priscillian, Address to Bishop Damasus ; 
Damasus, Letters, VIII and IX, to Jerome. 
AppPenpIx I Sirictus, Decretal to Himerius of Tarragona, . . . . 607 
AppenpDIx II The Liberian Catalogue . . : 2. 9) eee 


THE Popes OF THE First Four CENTuRIES, Chronological List . . . 716 


INDEX  . © 0 (6 4 6 ea sm ee fu om fear ee 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


The texts upon which the Papacy rests its claims and asserts its 
great prerogatives, — the vital ones at least, — are so few in number, 
that it would seem as if they should have been long ago understood 
and evaluated by every reader of history. But when one examines 
them in detail, one realizes that the very scarcity of this material but 
enhances its difficulty. Practically every text has been and still is the 
object of controversy. For where the texts are few, criticism cannot 
easily check up one with another and so establish their historical value. 

The first problem confronting the historical scholar is to make sure 
of the genuineness of the document upon which his work depends. This 
means more than simply to establish the fact that some document 
similar to that which he has in hand was produced at a certain time 
and by a certain person. He must identify every part of the text of 
the document he is using as that of the original, must be certain that 
the passage upon which he relies is not the addition of some later 
editor or interpolator; otherwise his problem is not entirely solved and 
his subsequent conclusion to some extent insecure. Since, however, few 
genuine texts have come down to us from beyond the Middle Ages, 
— most documents reaching us in the form of later copies made by 
scribes in monasteries, —and since these early copies naturally lack 
the precision of the printing press, modern research is obliged to try to 
reconstruct the lost original by a comparison of the later texts, noting 
differences which are due to the peculiarities of individual scribes or of 
different periods of monastic learning, following clues of similarities 
which are evidently imposed upon the copyists, and adopting a thousand 
and one other devices. In this field of textual criticism scholars have 
in the last century or so achieved remarkable results, of which the 
reconstruction of biblical texts is perhaps the best known. 

The history of the Papacy naturally presents many such problems, 
and yet so much has been done, partly by polemical writers straining 
every energy to justify or destroy the texts involved in their contro- 
_ versies, partly by scholars of the judicial temper, weighing the evidence 
thus adduced, that — outside of the Liber Pontificalis which is analyzed 

x1X 


XX GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


in another and parallel volume of this series — there seems little likeli- 
hood of serious challenge to the documents at present accepted as 
genuine. There are some textual problems left, but, upon the whole, 
textual criticism has apparently almost completed its work. There 
remain, in addition to the controversies over the New Testament texts, 
which, of course, are fundamental, some uncertainties over texts for 
which we are dependent upon a Latin or oriental translation of a lost 
Greek original, as in the case of Irenaeus, or the Chronicle of Eusebius, 
or upon a quotation by a later writer, like Eusebius, from a document 
of an earlier day. A few other problems are noted in the following 
pages. But there seems little likelihood of any very radical change in 
the present position of textual criticism in this field. 

The establishment of a text, however, difficult as it is, is only the 
preliminary step in the historical reconstruction of the past. It is, 
upon the whole, an easier task than to estimate the original meaning - 
of the documents in the days when they were first called out or their 
significance later when they were decisive for policies or institutions. 
To judge of their original import, one must know the situations which’ 
led to their production, the character of the writers or the way in which 
they wished to be understood. Even when this is satisfactorily estab- 
lished — as is seldom possible —the historian’s work is hardly more 
than begun. For documents, like individuals, have careers in history 
and their influence sometimes depends less upon their real origin than 
upon the way in which they coincide with the general outlook and 
demand of the subsequent age in which they are mainly used. Indeed 
in some cases an obscure authorship is an asset in the later career, 
since it permits posterity to attribute a more honorable origin than 
would be possible if more were known of the production. And to the 
historian this later, somewhat illegitimate, importance of the document, 
based upon ignorance, may be as valuable a part of its history as its 
origin. In any case, the whole history must be kept in mind when 
dealing with any part. 

To illustrate this statement of the importance of viewing docu- 
mentary history as a whole, let us take a famous document in secular 
history. Magna Carta offers relatively little difficulty in the line of 
textual criticism. Its genuineness is established beyond all question; 
we know when and how it was drawn up and granted, and the readings 
are not reconstructed from copies made by scribes centuries later. But 
even so well authenticated a document may be quite misconstrued. 
For instance, when it called for a trial before one’s peers, was it estab- 
lishing a principle of a national constitution, which, in coming centuries, 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION XX1 


as trial by jury, should safeguard the liberties of the people, or was it 
turning back to feudal customs, where justice was rudely dispensed in 
a suzerain’s court? Sceptical scholars, interpreting this and other 
clauses in the latter sense, have gone so far as to claim that the charter 
did not become the constitutional landmark it is represented in our 
school histories, a palladium of liberties and an ideal for government, 
until the era of the struggle for liberty in the seventeenth century, when 
it was clothed with retrospective and legendary significance. However 
that may be, it is clear that subsequent history played its réle in ex- 
alting the original charter to an importance and scope which are hardly 
justified by the original event. There are, therefore, two charters in 
English history: the original one and the subsequent one — legendary, 
perhaps, but more real to history than the mere feudal document. 

The only way to understand the historical importance of documents ' 
is to know them in their setting at every stage of their history. One 
must not be blinded to realities by the posthumous glory of those more 
fortunate ones which have proved valuable to a later age; nor on the 
other hand leave aside those which have been decisive but once. They 
must be interpreted by the historical imagination, reproducing both the 
conditions under which the documents were written and also those 
under which they were used. 

The documents of papal history, in a sense, are singularly like those 
of the British constitution. The development of the papal monarchy 
took place in response to inherent forces and under pressure from each 
successive age. Like the national state, which built ostensibly upon 
precedent and framed even its revolutions upon pretexts of past models, 
the Papacy found the justification for its policies and its claims in 
certain fundamental records. These records are the texts given below. 

Most of these texts have been the object of so much theological 
controversy that it is something of a novelty to bring them to the 
cold light of historical analysis. And there is perhaps a danger in 
doing so, if the slightness of the textual evidence is to be accepted 
thoughtlessly, as sufficient proof in itself that the claims they embody 
are as slight as they. The fact that there are so few texts cannot be 
taken by itself to lessen the weight of those we have. Such reasoning 
would be allowable in modern history, where one would be sure to find 
numerous references in all kinds of sources to events or documents of 
any importance whatever. But in the days when the Church was taking 
shape there were few documents of any kind. If one were to cut out 
all statements in ancient or medieval history which are unsupported 
by contemporary evidence, we should have little history left. It is 


XXli GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


quite possible, to be sure, that much of what we accept as ancient 
history does rest upon false and wrong data. In the nineteenth century 
of our era, historians finally rejected such world-old stories as those of 
the Roman kings and reconstructed the narrative of the Bible, thus 
branding as unhistorical some of the most fundamental texts in history. 
The mere fact that documents have been accepted for centuries does not 
in itself protect them from the tests of historical criticism. Wherever 
texts are not buttressed up by further contemporary evidence the atti- 
tude of that criticism toward them is apt to appear sceptical, or at best 
reserved, as to their genuineness; and this scepticism is the very soul 
of scientific work in history. Yet one can go too far, and by failing 
to realize, through a well-disciplined use of the historical imagination, 
the conditions which make the existence of corroborating evidence 
improbable, deny what is really genuine. if 

For example, the first definite statement which has come down to us . 
that Peter and Paul founded the Roman church, is made by Dionysius 
of Corinth about 170 A.D. ‘That is a long way from contemporary 
evidence. We have no lists of the early bishops of Rome until about 
the same period, and those we have do not quite agree. There is 
almost a blank, as far as precise documentary evidence goes, for the 
preceding century; and that was a century of turmoil, persecution and 
obscurity for the Christians, in which mythical legends of saints and 
martyrs were springing up. The Christians themselves were, according 
to pagan critics, rather credulous people and were living under that 
high emotional pressure in which historic accuracy is of relatively little 
importance compared with the free life of the spirit. The great growth 
of what we call spurious apostolic literature in this and the following 
period points to a continuance of the same unscientific and unhistorical 
habits of mind. Who, under such circumstances, would be prepared to 
accept a text a century old as adequate evidence for any historical fact? 
This is how the case appears to the critic who is predisposed against 
papal claims. But, on the other hand, whatever other sources there are 
all point to the existence of some element of fact behind the text. 
Recent studies in the origins of the Apostles’ Creed, for instance, show 
that there was more than casual reference in the words of Irenaeus, 
when he intimated that the church at Rome, as was the case with 
others, preserved “ scriptures’ which were sufficient to confound the 
heretics, and which carried the authority of the church back to the 
apostles. Since Irenaeus, too, wrote in the closing part of the second 
century, one might perhaps challenge his statement that these scriptures 
were as valid and genuine evidence as he asserted. But then we come 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION XXili 


upon the “ tradition” of the churches, to which he appealed, and which, 
at least in his day, was all in favor of the Catholic claims. 

Here we strike a problem that can never be solved. What is the 
value of tradition as a basis for the papal claims? Since, in the nature 
of things, a tradition is never contemporary evidence, the determination 
of its value must depend upon verification through other sources. Un- 
doubtedly the tendency to reject tradition went too far in the nineteenth 
century. It is now generally agreed that tradition, while losing or 
distorting the details, very commonly embodies some historical elements. 
This is especially true where varying traditions come back to some 
essential starting point. If one applies this receptive attitude to the 
legends of the Church, one is still left with an unsolved problem. For 
even although this attitude strengthens the probability of the tradition 
in its general lines, still it by no means excludes the possibility that 
the details, which tradition by its very nature rearranges or develops 
at a later time, may in this case be those which are regarded by the 
critical historian as essential for the claims. Therefore, although it is 
safe to say that few traditions are more solidly fixed, and few groups 
of them so readily fuse, as regards their essential facts, as those which 
support the Petrine claims of the Papacy, this does not finally settle 
the matter. Indeed it can never be settled, so far as historical evidence 
is concerned. The Catholic scholar fs sure to see more in the argument 
than the Protestant, because the one is predisposed to accept and the 
other to refuse. 

With reference to the Petrine doctrine, however, the Catholic atti- 
tude is much more than a “ pre-disposition to believe.” That doctrine 
is the fundamental basis of the whole papal structure. It may be 
summed up in three main claims. They are: first, that Peter was 
appointed by Christ to be his chief representative and successor and 
the head of his Church; second, that Peter went to Rome and founded 
the bishopric there; third, that his successors succeeded to his pre- 
rogatives, and to all the authority implied thereby. In dealing with 
these claims we are passing along the border line between history and 
dogmatic theology. The primacy of Peter and his appointment by 
Christ to succeed Him as head of the Church are accepted by the 
Catholic Church as the indubitable word of inspired Gospel, in its only 
possible meaning. That Peter went to Rome and founded there his 
See, is just as definitely what is termed in Catholic theology a dogmatic 
fact. This has been defined by an eminent Catholic theologian as 
“historical fact so intimately connected with some great Catholic 
truths that it would be believed even if time and accident had destroyed 


eT GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


all the original evidence therefor.” In this sense it may be said that 
Catholics accept the presence of Peter at Rome, on faith. But they 
assert at the same time that faith is really not called upon, since the 
evidence satisfactorily establishes the event as an historical fact. 

The following pages present, in the first place, all the texts, as far 
as the editors have been able to collect them, which form the basis for 
the Roman belief in Peter’s primacy and in his institution of the Roman 
bishopric. These texts are divided into three groups. The first com- 
prises those in the New Testament which throw light upon the extent 
of Peter’s preéminence among the apostles and the scope of his later 
labors. The second contains all historical references to Peter’s sojourn 
and death at Rome that can be found in the Greek and Latin Fathers 
down to the opening of the fifth century, when the Petrine tradition 
assumed its final shape. These references are, in a few instances, from 
very early writers, and in every case represent the opinions of sober 
and conscientious men, derived by them from older authorities now lost 
or from traditions regarded in their day as genuine. They include little 
inherently incredible; and many Protestants in these days are willing 
to concede the plausibility of a part, at least, of the theory built upon 
them. The third group is made up of a curious and less respectable 
set of documents, the popular apocryphal literature, which grew up 
around the figure of Peter almost as soon as reliable records began, 
literature sprung from misconceptions and confusions or else frankly 
fictitious. It needs but little attention to distinguish the character of © 
this group of texts from that of the second. Now and then an idea 
or a picturesque anecdote from this last group is repeated by a serious 
scholar for its force or illustrative value, but the group as a whole was 
marked from the first as dubious, untrustworthy or heretical. It 
played its part, however, in the exaltation of Peter and his See in the 
general imagination during the centuries when the Papacy was rising 
to greatness. 

After the texts concerned with Peter himself come those which show 
step by step the development of the institution which he was believed 
to have founded, texts depicting both the awakening of the popes them- 
selves to a consciousness of their unique position and the gradual recog- 
nition by others of their peculiar prerogatives, exegetical arguments 
drawn from the New Testament, instances of authority actually exer- 
cised, disputed or admitted through the first three hundred years after 
Peter’s death. 

These texts also are divided into three groups. The first, a collec- 
tion in the main of random sentences and incidental allusions, comprises 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION XXV 


every contemporary record that we have of the bishops of Rome to the 
end of the second century of our era. It is clear toward the close that 
their position is already one of unusual dignity and prestige. It is not 
clear, however, that it rests upon more than the accepted fact of the 
consecration of the Roman church by the two famous missionary 
apostles, the location of that church in the capital of the Empire, and 
the number and efficient organization of its members. Our second 
group of texts carries the chronicle on to the reign of Constantine, at 
the opening of the fourth century. Through this period again the 
evidence is intermittent and there are long gaps of years when it fails 
altogether. But here and there it becomes suddenly comparatively 
abundant, letters, comments, diatribes, called out for the most part 
by debatable policies and acts of the Roman See. We cannot always 
date this material with precision nor tell which pontiff nor what deed 
of his aroused the agitation. Because we know so little of the circum- 
stances, we cannot organize the material otherwise than loosely, putting 
together whatever we are fairly sure belongs to the story of one pon- 
tificate but leaving much else arranged merely in approximate, chrono- 
logical order under the name of its author. Yet the light which this 
spasmodic, controversial literature throws upon the situation is every 
now and then enough to let us see both the Roman bishop claiming 
definitely for himself the supremacy over all other bishops as heir in 
his own person to Peter, the chief of the apostles, and the resentful and 
hesitant bishops and theologians of the West and the East. 

The last group of texts, far exceeding the other two in volume and 
diversity, portrays the popes of the fourth century, enriched and as- 
sisted, save for one short interval, by the friendly emperors, fully 
accepted as heads and leaders by their colleagues in the West and 
slowly, by dint of favoring circumstances, convincing even the reluctant 
East of their right to spiritual predominance. Here we arrive at a time 
when pontificates can be accurately dated and the character of the man 
in office read with increasing distinctness in letters of his own writing 
as well as in the impression he produced upon the religious and secular 
world of his day. The material, which heretofore it has been impossible 
to codrdinate closely, for lack of exact chronology and information, can 
now be assembled and grouped more definitely under the head of the 
particular pope and topic to which it relates. Miltiades, Silvester, 
Julius, Liberius and Damasus, — the names represent substantial prog- 
ress in our knowledge of the papal position as well as its own steady 
advance in power and renown. 


XXVI GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


If space had permitted, there might have been added here a section 
devoted to the apocryphal achievements of the early bishops, the 
spurious acts, miracles and decrees attributed to them, invented ap- 
parently, as the apocryphal Acts of Peter were invented, to enhance 
the popular reverence for the supposititious doer. In particular, the 
legendary Acts of Silvester are worthy of consideration, originating, 
as they probably do, before the period of our study is over, and making 
bold capital for the Roman See out of the renown of the great Con- 
stantine by ascribing that emperor’s bodily healing and religious con- 
version to the agency of the Roman bishop Silvester. Ignored at first 
by every reputable historian, this fable made its way, gathering volume 
as it went, reénforced eventually by a forged Donation, until it had 
imposed upon all Europe the conception of Silvester as the potent in- 
fluence behind Constantine’s most striking measures and of Constantine 
himself as the dutiful servant of the See of Peter. 

Six years before the death of Damasus, our last bishop, in 384, the 
emperor Valens was defeated and killed by a host of invading Visigoths. 
Almost unsuspected by men of the day the fall of the Empire in the 
West had begun and the world in which the Papacy had arisen had 
started on its swift transformation into the new, strange world of the 
Goth, the Lombard and the Frank. In the familiar pages of Gibbon, 
Gregorovius, Hodgkin, Villari and others, that transformation is de- 
picted. Everyone has heard how the dissolution of the imperial fabric 
in the West opened up fresh vistas of opportunity to the head of the 
western Church and how the Papacy of Gregory VII and Innocent III 
grew out of that of Leo I and Gregory I. But the student who has read 
the records of the Papacy of the Roman Empire is also aware that the 
famous sermon of Leo on the Petrine supremacy, quoted in so many 
textbooks, and his assertion of doctrinal authority over the Council of 
Chalcedon were but repetitions in forcible terms of claims that were 
first enunciated by his predecessors two hundred years before. Such a 
student may examine, one by one, all the well-known declarations of 
papal power from the fifth century to the nineteenth. He will find 
everywhere the same fundamental theory, propounded and to a con- 
siderable extent accepted before the Empire fell, varying only in the 
details of its working out and of its application to a later age. 


i BOOK ONE | 59 


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PART I 
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTS 


INTRODUCTION 


A survey of the evidence of the New Testament for the 
appointment of Peter by Christ to a position of primacy in the 
Church and his later exercise of leadership among the apostles 
raises two distinct problems. In the first place, there is the 
question of the value of the texts themselves, their authenticity, 
origin and interrelation, a question which can be answered only 
by the methods of textual criticism. In the next place, there is 
the question of the effect of these texts, as they have actually 
been handed down, upon the doctrines of the Church and the 
beliefs of mankind. 

In this book, it is mainly the second of these problems with 
which we have to deal, for the New Testament was already 
formed, or at least the essential portions of it were already com- 
piled, before there was any use of it as documentary proof of 
the claims of the Roman See. In a general way, the Christian 
Scriptures and the Church took shape side by side as contempo- 
rary and complementary movements. ‘The apostolic and sub- 
apostolic ages were not dominated by a great hierarchical system, 
supported by well regulated archives. They were times of in- 
tense, free spirituality, when inspiration was still producing sacred 
books and apostles and prophets continued to receive and teach 
“divine oracles.” Formal elements were there, but traditions 
and opinions were not yet fixed and the functions of the local 
officials, overseers or bishops (ézicKomot, episcopi) and elders 
(mpeoBvrepor, presbyteri) were undefined.t Toward the end of 


1 At this primitive stage, the term, elders, or presbyters, seems to have been 
generally applied to the seniors of the church community and to have included the 
appointed overseers or bishops, possibly also the deacons. The presbyter does not 
become a specific official in the clerical hierarchy, z.e., priest, until the latter part 
of the second century. 

3 


4 THE SEE OF PETER 


the period, one may see both Church and Scriptures? emerging 
from the welter of inspiration and prophecy as solid, visible struc- 
tures, the preservation of which was thenceforth to be accepted 
as “ orthodox.” 

This growth of ecclesiastical organization and New Testa- 
ment canon was at first hindered by the fact that inspiration and 
prophecy were regarded in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages 
as not limited to a definite number of apostles and prophets nor 
to times in the past. Wandering evangelists still carried the 
gospel, as Paul had done, “ driven by the Spirit,” and those who 
spoke “ with tongues ” were still likely to interrupt or take over 
part of the service, even in the presence of bishops and elders.* 
Similarly, inspiration was still producing scriptures, such as The 
Shepherd of Hermas,* The Ascension of Isaiah,” and a whole 
series of “ visions,” ‘‘ parables” and “ teachings.” ‘This liberty 
of revelation and lack of any comprehensive system of control 
led naturally to divergent views of Christian doctrine and dis- 
order in the churches. Paul’s epistles display the situation with 
great distinctness, when he was preaching one form of truth 
in the north country, Peter another variation, and James and 
John yet another in the strictly Jewish circles of Palestine. But 
with the disappearance of the apostles divergences became even 
more serious and numerous, for the exuberant spirituality, which 
preserved the prophetic aspects of early days, developed unex- 
pected tendencies toward various kinds of oriental and Greek 
mysticism and new theologians tried to interpret and adapt it to 
the speculations of Hellenistic philosophy. Thus arose the first 
great heresies, in particular the complex and variegated move- 
ment known as Gnosticism,’ which might have swept Christianity 
entirely away from its early moorings, had it not been held in ~ 
check, as we have already intimated, by the parallel, conservative 
development of the institutions of the episcopate and the canon 
of sacred, Christian Scriptures, upon whose authority the faithful 


2 The word “ scriptures”? was restricted to the sacred writings of the Jewish 
synagogue and not used for Christian literature until after the apostolic age. 

3 According to The Didache (c. 120-130), it is a sin to interrupt a prophet 
when in the spirit. However, by this time the local church is cautioned to be sure 
that the prophet is genuinely inspired. 

4 Infra, p. 242. 6 See especially the Epistle to the Galatians. 

5 Infra, p. 69. * Infra, p. 77, D. 39. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 5 


could rely. At the opening of the second century, Ignatius of 
Antioch demanded in ringing terms a strong head in the churches 
to meet the trials of the times and to stand as the representative 
of Christ. By the middle of the century, the process of the 
formation of the New Testament was sufficiently advanced for 
Papias to prepare a book entitled Interpretation of the Sayings 
of Our Lord, in which he described the way in which the gospels 
had been written.° Toward the close of the century, the process 
was all but complete, as the Muratorian Fragment, composed 
somewhere between 170 and 190 A.D., contains a list of accepted 
books.*® By that time the Church had, as well, passed definitely 
under episcopal control. 

This parallel history indicates how, in a general way, the 
complicated history of the documentary foundation of the Papacy 
requires two distinct processes. The actual formation of those 
documents which in the last analysis are the most vital for the 
claims of the Roman See can be studied only by means of a 
learned investigation of those parts of the New Testament that 
reach back to the apostles or to their immediate tradition. In 
order to arrive at their original significance it is necessary to 
apply to them the tests of what in theology is called the higher 
criticism but what is actually nothing more nor less than expert 
historical criticism. ‘The great history of the Papacy, however, 
as we have said, did not begin until after the New Testament 
had acquired practically its present form, so the texts in the shape 
they had then assumed, familiar to us now and to all Christendom | 
since then, are after all the materials with which the Papacy has 
always worked and, therefore, of prime importance even as they 
stand. Reading them as they are, we uncover the bottom foun- 
dation on which the Papacy rests; testing them by historical 
criticism, we probe into the nature of the foundation to ascertain 
how far it is genuine rock and how far crumbling sand. 

This present study, however, contains nothing that can be 
called textual criticism. The field of New Testament exegetics 
is a specialist’s province and the student must turn elsewhere for 
a restatement of the texts as they appear after the critic of to-day 


8 Infra, pp. 71, 239. 9 Infra, p. 73. 10 Infra, p. 49, n. 60. 


6 THE SEE OF PETER 


has torn them apart and put them together again. The object of 
the present study is primarily to review, with the addition of a 
few suggestions and comments, these texts in the form in which 
they were employed to erect the fabric of a papal monarchy. 
Therefore the text used is the authorized Catholic translation * 
into English from the Latin Vulgate, which was declared the 
official text at the Council of Trent (IV Session, April 8, 1546), 
having been in universal use in the West during the entire Middle 
Ages, that is, during the long period of practically undisputed 
realization of the papal claims. Whatever the critic may now 
think of the origins and meanings of these texts, to Christians of 
earlier centuries they were indisputably authentic and to the his- 
torian of the institution reared upon them they are pataer es 
as the groundwork underlying the whole structure. 

The life of Peter, as recorded in the New Testament, falls 
naturally into two parts: the first, coeval with the life of Jesus; 
the second, after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In the first part, 
he appears principally in the relation of a disciple to his master; 
in the second, as one apostle in the group of apostles. Generally 
speaking, the sources for the first part lie in the four Gospels, 
for the second in the Book of Acts and the Epistles. For any 
connection of Peter with the city of Rome the witness of the 
New Testament is vague and inconclusive. Such as it is, we 
give it here, though taken by itself it is insufficient to prove 
anything. Were it not for the tradition that begins to find ex- 
pression in the writings of the Fathers at a date hardly later than — 


11 This version is popularly known as the Douay Version. The translation of 
the New Testament in this edition was made in 1582 at Rheims, whither the Douay 
English College was transplanted between the years 1579 and 1593; the completed 
“ Douay ” version of the Bible, into which this was incorporated, was published 
in 1609-1610. The variations in text from editions in use by Protestants are not 
vital in the case of any citations in question, being for the most part merely slight 
rearrangement of phrases or the substitution of different synonyms. For the pur- 
poses of this history either the King James Edition or the Revised Edition would 
yield practically the same results. It should be added that while this study does 
not enter the field of Biblical criticism as such, it deals with some of the chief 
results of that criticism in so far as it affects the texts relating to the papal claims. 

12 The Council in this session (Session IV) declared, “ ut haec ipsa vetus et 
vulgata editio ...in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus et 
expositionibus pro authentica habeatur,” 7.e., the Vulgate text may be used for 
Scriptural proof and is the official text to be used at Catholic services. The Church 

-in adopting the Vulgate as her official version did not maintain that it is a scientifi- 
cally correct translation of the original texts. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 7 


that of the last of the books of the New Testament, Peter’s 
prerogatives, however great, would have lacked their historical 
relation to the Roman See. This tradition and its outgrowths in 
legend are traced in the following sections. 


1. JESUS AND PETER 


THE GOSPEL OF MARK 


The prime source for the life of Peter during his discipleship 
is the Gospel of Mark, if, as seems probable, it was based partly 
as to substance upon Peter’s own recollections. The tradition 
that this was the case was recorded by Papias toward the middle 
of the second century.** The date for the composition is about 
75 A.D., and the place apparently Rome. Mark, listening to 
Peter’s preaching, made note of anecdotes in the life of Jesus, 
and then, somewhat later, strung these together into a narrative. 
The narrative displays just the qualities which such an origin 
presupposes. The gospel is not a biography of Jesus but a 
collection of striking incidents fitted into a loose scheme. These 
incidents, therefore, appear to be those upon which Peter placed 
his emphasis in preaching. If we could be absolutely sure of this 
and if there were no other elements in the second gospel, we 
should have here the most direct evidence possible as to Peter’s 
own ideas concerning his relations with Christ. Unfortunately 
for the historian, the problem is not so simple. For Mark was 
a companion of Paul as well as of Peter,** and his gospel reveals 

13 Infra, pp. 73, 80. 

14 The first incident connected with Mark’s life is given in Acts XII, 12, where 
Peter, on his escape from prison, went to “‘ the house of Mary, the mother of John, 
who was surnamed Mark, where many were gathered together. .. .” The next is 
an isolated verse (v. 25) attached to the end of the chapter, stating that Barnabas 
and Saul took Mark with them when they left Jerusalem. In the next chapter, 
however, Mark leaves them in Pamphylia and returns to Jerusalem (XIII, 13). 
Paul regarded this as something akin to apostasy and would have nothing more to 
do with Mark, according to Acts XV, 38, 39, feeling so strongly on the subject that 
it caused “ dissension ”’ between him and Barnabas resulting in a complete rupture. 
Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, while Paul chose another companion, 
Silas, and went through Syria and Cilicia. With that, Mark disappears from Acts. 
From the epistles of Paul, however, it is evident that the dissension has been 
healed. Colossians IV, 10, throws a new light on the incident, from the remark 


that Mark was a cousin of Barnabas; but Paul now supports his mission. Finally 
in Philemon, v. 24, Mark is mentioned as a fellow worker by Paul, who is now 


8 THE SEE OF PETER 


sufficient Pauline tendencies to make one hesitate before accept- 
ing it as a simple mirror of Peter’s point of view. Mark uses 
his data much as Paul would have done. He is explaining to 
the Gentiles why Jesus was not recognized by the Jews as the 
Messiah, and also why the disciples themselves were slow to 
comprehend. His conception of the significance of Jesus’ life 
is essentially like Paul’s. He puts the emphasis upon the death 
and resurrection and the spiritual Messiahship; and yet the in- 
cidents he relates show that that was not the conception of the 
disciples at the time. It appears almost as though Mark were 
attempting to write a Pauline gospel with Petrine data. In other 
words, it would seem as if we have a harmonizer at work, and 
we can not tell how much of the gospel he wrote reflects the 
specific attitudes of Peter. One thing, however, does seem clear; . 
and that is that it was at Rome that the first gospel was prepared, 
and that it was so catholic in temper, so wide in its appeal, 
and weighted with such apostolic authority as to secure a de- 
cided preéminence for itself among the literature of the early 
Church, and thus to become a mine from which other gospels 
largely drew. 

The part played by Peter in the Gospel of Mark is therefore 
a question of the first importance for the history of the Papacy; 
since there, if anywhere, we may look for some account of Peter’s 
own ideas upon his primacy. The results are interesting, if per- 
haps somewhat disappointing. For none of the vital texts upon 
which the Petrine claims rest comes from the Gospel of Mark. 
The incidents of Jesus’ life are partly grouped around that of 
Peter, it is true; but there is no assertion of claims nor grant of 
power. The fact that this gospel was not written to elucidate 


apparently a prisoner in Rome. Some apply the remark in 2 Timothy IV, 11, 
where Paul is quoted as charging Timothy to “ take Mark and bring him with 
thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry,” as indicating that Mark was to 
come from Colossae to Rome expressly to help Paul. So far, all the relations of 
Mark have been with Paul. But in 1 Peter V, 13, greeting is sent from Rome 
(Babylon) by the church and “ my son, Mark.” This little intimate touch, which 
is generally taken to refer to spiritual parenthood, and more especially to the 
conversion of Mark by Peter, is to be balanced against the whole Pauline relation- 
ship. Mark was apparently a link between the two apostles. The gospel of Mark 
bears out this impression by its contents. See recent comment on the traditional 
origin and character of the gospel in F. J. F. Jackson and K. Lake, The Beginnings 
of Christianity (2 vols., London, 1920-1922), Pt. I, vol. I, pp. 267, 316-317. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 9 
such matters lessens but does not entirely get rid of the implica- 
tions of such a silence. For again we must remember that it was 
written in Rome some years after Peter’s death. We shall recur: 
to this point again. 


THE CALL 


The story of Mark as to Peter begins with what is generally 
referred to as “the call.” After a short introduction, describing 
the baptism in the Jordan and the forty days in the wilderness 
(I, 1-13), we read of Jesus in Galilee preaching and calling to 
him four fishermen, who follow him as he goes into the synagogues 
along the seashore and the hills. One of these is Simon, who has 
a house in Capernaum (Capharnaum), to which Jesus comes 
when he returns to that town (v. 21). The following texts con- 
tain all specific references to Simon in the opening chapters, in- 
deed until we reach the account of the organization of the group 
of twelve disciples, in the third chapter. The English rendering 
is that of the Douay Version. 


I 16 And passing by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and 
Andrew his brother, casting nets into the sea (for they were 
fishermen ). 

17 And Jesus said to them: Come after me; and I will 
make you to become fishers of men. 

18 And immediately leaving their nets, they followed 
him. 

19 And going on from thence a little farther, he saw 
James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also 
were mending their nets in the ship: 

20 And forthwith he called them. And leaving their 
father Zebedee in the ship with his hired men, they followed 
him. 

21 And they entered into Capharnaum: and forthwith 
upon the sabbath days going into the synagogue, he taught 
them. 


IO THE SEE OF PETER 


29 And immediately, going out of the synagogue, they 
came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and - 
John. 

30 And Simon’s wife’s mother lay ina fit of a fever .. . 
[Jesus heals her. By nightfall a great crowd gathers at the 
door. | 


35 And rising very early, going out, he went into a 
desert place: and there he prayed. 
36 And Simon and they that were with him followed 
after him. 
THE TWELVE 


In contrast with the informal character of Jesus’ preaching 
in the synagogues and along the countryside in Galilee, and the 
intimate, personal relationship which exists between him and the 
little group of fishermen whom he calls first to accompany him, 
a more formal organization of discipleship is inaugurated with 
the appointment of ‘the Twelve,” as recorded in the extract 
from the third chapter quoted below. In the sixteenth verse of 
this extract, we have as well the only reference in Mark to the 
definite act of changing Simon’s name to that of Peter, which, 
in the Gospel of Matthew is given in a different setting, — being 
connected with the incident of Peter’s confession.” Here the 
renaming is given no deep significance, but is paralleled by that 
of James and John. It should be noted, however, that while the © 
name Peter tends from the first to stick to Simon, though Jesus 
continues to call him Simon up to the last,** the characterization 
of James and John is not treated later as a name at all. 

The Twelve are chosen, according to the fourteenth verse of 
the third chapter, “ that twelve should be with him, and that he 
might send them to preach.” The sections of Mark immediately 
following may be said to deal with this Galilean ministry almost 
as though these two clauses embodied a program; at first, we are 
given the story of Jesus in touch with the Twelve, then, a definite 


15 Vide infra, p. 25. 
i 16 Cf. XIV, 37, in Gethsemane. “And he saith to Peter: Simon, sleepest 
thou? ” 


THE PETRINE TRADITION II 


commission charging them to disperse and, two by two, go about 
the country preaching the gospel. The instruction of the Twelve 
is carried on, during this first phase, at times when he can get 
them by themselves. A crowd generally follows them, but once 
“when he was alone, the twelve that were with him asked him 
the parable. And he said to them: To you it is given to know 
the mystery of the kingdom of God: but to them that are with- 
out, all things are done in parables”: (IV, 10, 11). Ai little 
later in the text, in the passages cited from the sixth chapter, 
comes the assignment of their mission and the bestowal of the 
gift of miracle. This is for all the Twelve; nothing is said here 
as to their mutual relationship. The two passages are as follows: 


III 13 And going up into a mountain, he called unto him 
whom he would himself. And they came to him. 

14 And he made that twelve should be with him, and 
that he might send them to preach, 

15 And he gave them power to heal sicknesses and to 
cast out devils. 

16 And to Simon he gave the name Peter; 

17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother 
of James; and them he surnamed Boanerges, which is, The 
sons of thunder. 

18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and 
Matthew, and Thomas, and James of Alpheus, and Thad- 
deus, and Simon the Cananean, 

1g And Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. 


VI 7 And he called the twelve, and began to send them 
two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits. 

8 And he commanded them that they should take 
nothing for the way, but a staff only: no scrip, no bread, 
nor money in their purse, 

9 But to be shod with sandals, and that they should not 
put on two coats. 

1o And he said to them: Wheresoever you shall enter 
into an house, there abide till you depart from that place. 


12 THE SEE OF PETER 


11 And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you: 
going forth from thence, shake off the dust from your feet 
for a testimony to them. 

12 And going forth they preached that men should do 
penance. 

13 And they cast out many devils and anointed with oil 
many that were sick and healed them. 


e e @ e 


30 And the apostles coming together unto Jesus, related 
to him all things that they had done, and taught. 

31 And he said to them: Come apart into a desert place 
and rest a little. For there were many coming and going: 
and they had not so much as time to eat. . 

32 And going up into a ship, they went into a desert 
place apart. 

33 And they saw them going away: and many knew. 
And they ran flocking thither on foot from all the cities, 
and were there before them. 


PETER’S CONFESSION 


As he was teaching his gospel and performing miracles in the 
company of his disciples, Jesus turned upon them one day, on 
the road from one village to another, with the query: “ Whom ~ 
do men say that Iam?” The answer of Peter, ‘“ Thou art the 
Christ,” was rebuked and the disciples were charged not to speak 
so to anyone about him. In Matthew, as we shall see, the 
passage was rewritten and absolutely reversed. Here, however, 
the incident is slight and the next follows it as a part of a 
continuous narrative in which Peter is twice reproved for ex- 
cessive zeal for his master’s glorification. 


VIII 27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the ~ 
towns of Caesarea Philippi. And in the way, he asked his 
disciples, saying to them: Whom do men say that I am? 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 13 


28 Who answered him, saying, John the Baptist; but 
some, Elias, and others as one of the prophets. 

29 Then he saith to them: But whom do you say that 
I am? Peter answering said to him: Thou art the Christ. 

30 And he strictly charged them that they should not 
tell any man of him. 

31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man 
must suffer many things and be rejected by the ancients 
and by the high priests and the scribes: and be killed and 
after three days rise again. 

32 And he spoke the word openly. And Peter taking 
him, began to rebuke him. 

33 Who turning about, and seeing his disciples, threat- 
ened Peter, saying: Go behind me, Satan: because thou 
savourest not the things that are of God, but that are of men. 


THE INNER GROUP AND THE QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE 


Running through the whole gospel is a series of references to 
the inner group of intimate disciples, Peter, James and John, 
whom Jesus had first called with Andrew from their fishing boat 
on the lake of Galilee. For instance, when raising the daughter 
of Jairus: “he admitted not any man to follow him, but Peter, 
and James and John the brother of James” (V, 37). They are 
the ones chosen to witness the scene of the Transfiguration. 
“And after six days, Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and 
John and leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by them- 
selves: and was transfigured before them.” *” In this case, as 
so frequently, Peter is the one who impetuously speaks: ‘‘ Rabbi, 
it is good for us to be here” (verse 4 [5]). In the ministry at 
Jerusalem, to which the remainder of Mark after the eleventh 
chapter is devoted, it is this inner group of disciples which is at 
hand on the Mount of Olives, Peter and James and John and 
Andrew (XIII, 3), and in Gethsemane (XIV, 32, 33). “And 
he saith to his disciples: Sit you here, while I pray. And he 


17 Mark IX, 1, Douay Version; cf. ibid., IX, 2, King James’ Version. 


14 THE SEE OF PETER 


taketh Peter and James and John with him.” A study of each 
of these incidents shows that even in this group Peter occupies 
a certain personal prominence. The difficulty, however, of com- 
ing to a positive conclusion upon the extent of this prominence 
is increased by the fact that the apostles themselves appear to 
have had their own disagreements concerning the rank which 
each was entitled to hold in the future organization of the ex- 
pected kingdom. The first incident in their controversy occurred 
in Peter’s own house at Capernaum, and is described below in 
the ninth chapter, verses 32-34 (33-35). The rebuke is plain: 
‘“‘if any man desire to be first, he shall be the last of all and the 
minister of all.” Jesus refused to encourage any ambitions for of- 
fice or power. The next verses of the same chapter have appar- 
ently no bearing upon the dispute; but Matthew connects the two 
passages. The whole is given here for purposes of comparison. 

The question of precedence, however, was not settled by one 
rebuke. It came up again and again, showing that among the 
disciples themselves there was still rivalry for honor in the king- 
dom which they believed Jesus about to establish. Mark records 
these incidents to show apparently that Jesus himself singled out 
no one for leadership and forbade his disciples to concern them- 
selves over which one of their number should head them. The 
replies of Jesus are as insistent as their queries. In the tenth 
chapter, the question of the rich man entering the kingdom brings 
out such a response from Jesus as to indicate that his phrase, 
“the first shall be last,” is part of his general outlook on the 
future and does not apply simply to the one matter of apostolic 
precedence. ‘The whole extract is of great interest because 
Matthew employs it later with an additional verse to give it a 
narrower sense (Matthew XIX, 27-30). The specific problem 
of the apostles’ jealousies is taken up by Mark, however, in 
verses 35-36 of the same chapter (IX), and is there settled, as 
far as this gospel is concerned, in the most definite manner. 


IX 32 And they came to Capharnaum. And when they 
were in the house, he asked them: What did you treat of 
in the way? 


THE PETRINE TRADITION . 15 


33 But they held their peace, for in the way they had 
disputed among themselves, which of them should be the 
greatest. _ 

34 And sitting down, he called the twelve and saith to 
them: If any man desire to be first, he shall be the last of 
all and the minister of all. 

35 And taking a child, he set him in the midst of them. 
Whom when he had embraced, he saith to them: 

36 Whosoever shall receive one such child as this in my 
name receiveth me. And whosoever shall receive me, re- 
ceiveth not me but him that sent me. 


X 26 Who wondered the more,” saying among themselves: 
Who then can be saved? 

27 And Jesus looking on them, saith: With men it is 
impossible; but not with God. For all things are possible 
with God. 

28 Peter began to say unto him: Behold, we have left 
all things and have followed thee. 

29 Jesus answering said: Amen I say to you, there is 
no man who hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, 
or mother, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the 
gospel, 

30 Who shall not receive an hundred times as much, 
now in this time; houses, and brethren, and sisters, and 
mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions: and in 
the world to come life everlasting. 

31 But many that are first shall be last: and the last 
first. 


35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to 
him, saying: Master, we desire that whatsoever we shall 


18 At Jesus’ statement that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of 
a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 


16 THE SEE OF PETER 


ask, thou wouldst do it for us. 

36 But he said to them: What would you that I should 
do for you? 

37 And they said: Grant to us that we may sit, one on 
thy right hand, one on thy left hand, in thy glory. 

38 And Jesus said to them: You know not what you ask. 
Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of or be baptized 
with the baptism wherewith I am baptized? 

39 But they said to him: We can. And Jesus saith to 
them: You shall indeed drink of the chalice that I drink of; 
and with the baptism wherewith I am baptized you shall be 
baptized. , 

40 But to sit on my right hand or on my left is not mine 
to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared. 

41 And the ten hearing it, began to be much displeased 
with James and John. 

42 But Jesus calling them, said to them: You know that 
they who seem to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them: 
and their princes have power over them. 

43 But it is not so among you: but whosoever will be 
greater, shall be your minister: 

44 And whosoever will be first among you, shall be the 
servant of all. 

45 For the Son of man also is not come to be ministered 
unto: but to minister and to give his life a redemption for 
many. 


PETER’s DENIAL AND THE RESURRECTION 


The presence of Peter, James and John with Jesus in the 
garden of Gethsemane has been already noted. The most de- 
tailed story that is told of Peter, however, is that of his denial, 
which bears the marks of personal reminiscence. At the betrayal, 
“one of them that stood by, drawing a sword, struck a servant of 
the chief priest . . .” (XIV, 47). Mark, Matthew and Luke 
leave the incident thus vague. The fourth gospel alone asserts 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 17 


that the assailant was Peter (John XVIII, 10). But when Jesus 
was led away, “ Peter followed him afar off” (XIV, 54) and in 
. the court below denied him repeatedly until a look from Jesus 
brought him back to shame and bitter repentance. He plays no 
further part in Mark’s gospel; except that at the resurrection, the 
young man at the tomb said to the women: “‘ But go, tell his dis- 
ciples and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee” (XVI, 7). 

The oldest manuscripts of Mark carry the story no farther, 
stopping with the next verse. The risen Christ is going back to 
the scene of his ministry, by the sea of Galilee, where lived Peter 
and James and John. In the text of the New Testament as we 
now have it, verses 9 to 20 have been added, ending with a charge 
to all the eleven disciples, “‘ go ye into the whole world and preach 
the gospel to every creature,’’ with the assurance that they will 
be accompanied with the power of miracle. ‘ But they going 
forth preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and con- 
firming the word with signs that followed” (XVI, 20). 

The Gospel of Mark, upon the whole, is singularly lacking in 
the assertion of claims to special authorization for Peter. The 
fact that Jesus used Peter’s house as the center of his ministry 
in Galilee is not dwelt upon and there are no especial favors 
shown Peter. He is mentioned more definitely than the other 
disciples, but his prominence in the narrative is hardly greater 
than he as a source of it would be bound to have. Whether one 
views this absence of specific claims as implying a modest reti- 
cence on Peter’s part or as an accommodation by Mark to the situ- 
ation in the Church at the time he wrote, or simply as characteriz- 
ing a true account of the original situation, the text itself is before 
us. And it is the most solidly established of the gospels. 


THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 


The Gospel according to Matthew is a still more composite 
work, much too complex for detailed examination here. But the 
following points, at least, bear directly upon our problem. 

In the first place, its narrative of the “ doings ” of Jesus is 
taken literally and almost bodily from Mark. This implies either 
that in the circles which produced the new gospel no other ex- 


18 THE SEE OF PETER 


tensive tradition of the acts of Jesus was available, or that the 
account of Mark was accepted already as of such authority that 
it was incorporated inevitably by the compiler. Since the com- 
pilation was made undoubtedly in Palestine or Syria, this absence 
of another tradition or narrative to rival the Petrine Mark is 
itself of distinct historical significance. 

In the second place, the substance of the “ sayings”’ of Jesus, 
which Matthew adds to Mark, was drawn from another source. 
Since Luke also used this in blocks, like Matthew, it is relatively 
easy to distinguish it by picking out what is common to Matthew 
and Luke but omitted from Mark. ‘This non-Markian source 
(often referred to as ““Q” from the German word Quelle, mean- 
ing “source”’), is mainly composed of ‘“‘sayings,” but it adds a 
few incidents — such as that of the centurion’s child, — and offers 
some hints of another narrative. Consequently scholars, analyz- 
ing the text still further, have concluded that this Q is itself made 
up of two parts, — the one a Greek narrative and the other a 
collection of sayings, known as the Logia, written in Aramaic (2.e. 
Hebrew). This latter alone is probably what Papias, who is our 
first informant, writing about a hundred years later, refers to 
when he says that “ Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew 
language, and everyone interpreted them as he was able.” * 
Matthew probably wrote down these first ‘‘ sayings”? about 45— 
50 A.D., about the time when the church in Rome was being 
founded. But the whole Gospel of Matthew, as we have it now, 
is the result of a longer process of development, which was per- 
haps only completed by the end of the century. Into this tangled 
problem we cannot enter fully here. The fact remains that from 
the “doings ”’ of Jesus recorded by Mark, and the composite Q 
containing mainly the “ sayings,” the compiler of the Gospel of 
Matthew drew seven-eighths of his material. Other additions 
cannot be traced back to any text previous to that of the finished 
gospel, — that is a text of the closing years of the century, later 
than Mark by a generation. It is of decided historical interest 
that it is among these extra texts that those are found upon 
which the Petrine claims rest fundamentally. No inferences are 


19 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 39,16. Infra, pp. 73-74. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 19 


here suggested beyond the statement of the results of textual 
criticism. It is conceivable that the Mark tradition is supple- 
mented by authentic material, reaching back by paths unknown 
to us to the apostolic age. On the other hand, it must be said 
that these texts at least lack corroborative evidence enabling us 
positively to trace them back as far as the rest. 

A recent book by authoritative scholars *° proposes a reason- 
able hypothesis, that the Gospel of Matthew, as we have it, was 
compiled at Antioch. This hypothesis is in accord with such 
evidence as we possess. Peter was the first of the Twelve to go 
to Antioch and was associated from the first with the Gentile 
church there. Ancient tradition made him bishop in Antioch 
before he went to Rome. In the struggle between the Judaistic 
and Gentile groups in the Church for supremacy, although at 
first he hesitated, Peter was the one original apostle to take up 
and champion the broader policy of Paul, both in Samaria and 
at Antioch, against the conservative Jewish group, headed by 
James at Jerusalem. The emphasis laid by Matthew’s gospel 
upon the prerogatives of Peter, if its author were an Antiochene, 
finds therefore a historical explanation. Jerusalem lent its great 
prestige to any doctrine emanating from it; it had the sacred sites 
connected with Jesus’ life and death, and many apostles who had 
been his personal disciples. But Antioch had the apostle Peter; 


20 F, J. F. Jackson and K. Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, Pt. I, vol. I, 
The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 329-330. “It is clear that the Matthaean tradition 
cannot be that of Jerusalem. Two places are suggested by historical probability 
— Rome and Antioch. At first sight Rome seems natural; but this is due to the 
impression made by later controversy. There is no trace in the second century 
that Rome claimed supremacy because of its connection with Peter, nor is there 
evidence of the special use of Matthew in Rome. The claim of Antioch is less 
obvious but more probable. The epistles of Ignatius suggest that Matthew was 
the Antiochene gospel; the tradition that Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch is 
as old and as probable as that which makes him the first Bishop of Rome. Both 
reflect his historical connection with these cities, though expressed in the language 
of later ecclesiastical organization. The hypothesis may therefore be ventured that 
“Tu es Petrus’ represented originally not Roman but Antiochene thought, and 
reflects the struggle between Jerusalem and Antioch for supremacy. Jerusalem had 
James the brother of the Lord, who presided over the flock on Mount Zion. But 
Antioch claimed that Peter, not James, had been appointed by Jesus; on him, not 
on James, was the Church founded; and he, not James, had the keys of the King- 
dom, to admit or exclude whom he would. This is of course a hypothesis which 
cannot be demonstrated, but it seems more probable than the suggestion that the 
passage had originally anything to do with the claims of Rome.” In a footnote 
the author adds: “ For the study of Acts, part of the importance of this tentative 
identification of the Matthaean tradition with Antioch lies in the presumption 
created against the otherwise probable Antiochene provenance of the editor of Acts.” 


20 THE SEE OF PETER 


and the story of his life with the Master, which he had left behind 
him, — a story in which his own part was often a conspicuously 
faulty one, — might easily have been interpreted or retouched 
under these conditions so as to bring out in better perspective 
the career and work of Peter as locally understood. This would 
not involve a conscious or deliberate rewriting of history. It 
would merely call for a change in coloring and the addition of 
some details necessary to make Peter conspicuous for good and 
finally the appointed head of the new Church, the Rock on which 
it was founded. 


THE CALL 


The story of Peter according to the gospel of Matthew is 
obviously based upon the narrative of Mark, — in part, literally. 
After a somewhat longer introduction, with incidents of the birth 
and childhood of Jesus, of Herod and John the Baptist, and of 
the temptation in the wilderness, the first gospel follows the 
second in its treatment of the ministry in Galilee, but with a 
variation forced upon it by the other source from which it is 
drawn, the Q material. The ‘ sayings” of Jesus are naturally 
quoted here, where they are appropriate. The reader is told 
what Jesus was teaching as well as when or how he taught. 
Mark had limited himself more to the latter. The effect, how- 
ever, is to separate the incidents in Matthew and so to lose some 
of that sense of intimacy which the Gospel of Mark conveys. 
This expansion of the narrative in Matthew makes it difficult to 
quote upon this point; and the fact that whatever narrative there 
is relating these early events of the ministry is based upon Mark 
makes quotation unnecessary. 

The account of the first call to the fishermen of Galilee, given 
in Matthew IV, 18-22, is repeated almost verbatim from Mark I, 
16-20. But whereas in Mark nothing is said of what was done 
until the Sabbath, when Jesus taught in the synagogue at Caper- 
naum and then went “ immediately ” to Peter’s house, — which 
becomes a center to which they return from time to time, —in 
Matthew, Jesus goes teaching in all the synagogues of Galilee 
(IV, 23), preaches the Sermon on the Mount (V—VII), and re- 
stores the servant of the centurion (VIII, 5-13), before mention 


THE PETRINE TRADITION om 


is made of his going to Peter’s house (VIII, 14; cf. Mark I, 30). 
Moreover, the healing of Peter’s wife’s mother is to Matthew 
the main point in the incident; he draws a scriptural proof from 
it that Jesus was the Messiah. It is not until the seventeenth 
and eighteenth chapters that Matthew brings in the associations 
of the group in Peter’s house in Capernaum, varying only slightly 
from Mark as to substance. In studying Matthew, therefore, 
one must constantly remember that the two sources, Mark and Q, 
are interwoven so as to furnish one theme. 

But the fact that Matthew is somewhat less homely and 
intimate than Mark does not mean that Peter is treated with 
less distinction. On the contrary, it is the Gospel of Matthew 
which contains the prime sources for the historical claims of the 
Papacy. As we run over these texts in the succeeding sections, 
constant reference should be made to the corresponding passages 
from Mark, to note the additions or variations. 


THE TWELVE 


As in the case of the first call of Peter, Andrew, James and 
John and the ministry of Jesus in Galilee, the appointment of 
the twelve disciples is used by Matthew as an appropriate place 
in which to insert more of the “ sayings,’”’ which were to be the 
gospel taught by the disciples. So instead of a simple statement 
that Jesus chose twelve disciples ‘‘ that twelve should be with 
him and that he might send them to preach,” as in Mark III, 14, 
and that later he sent them forth clothed with authority over 
unclean spirits, as in Mark VI, 7, the calling of the Twelve be- 
comes in Matthew a formal act, combining the two separate 
passages of Mark and including a long charge to the disciples, 
which extends throughout the whole tenth chapter of the gospel. 
We shall have to refer to this later in connection with Luke’s 
treatment of the event, to which reference should be made. But 
in the text of Matthew one point must be noted here. That is, 
that in listing the Twelve, Matthew (X, 2) places Peter first, and 
in doing so mentions that he is first. It is the view of Catholic 
theologians that this is a formal statement of Peter’s primacy, 
one of the most definite in the New Testament, a recognition by 


22 THE SEE OF PETER 


Matthew of what was then positively accepted fact.** More 
sceptical views naturally also prevail, according to which there 
is nothing here but a list of names, beginning perhaps with the 
most prominent, neither indicating nor implying anything further. 
The text runs as follows: 


X 1 And having called his twelve disciples together, he 
gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and 
to heal all manner of diseases and all manner of infirmities. 

2 And the names of the twelve apostles are these: The 
first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; 

3 James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, Philip 
and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the publican, 
James the son of Alpheus, and Thaddeus; . 

4 Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot, who also 
betrayed him. 

5 These twelve Jesus sent: commanding them, saying: 
Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the city of 
the Samaritans enter ye not. 

6 But go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel. 

7 And going, preach, saying: The kingdom of heaven is 
at hand. | 

8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast 
out devils. Freely have you received, freely give. 

9 Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your 
purses. | 
1o Nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, 
nor a Staff. For the workman is worthy of his meat. 

1z And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter, 
Inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till you go 
thence. ; 

12 And when you come into the house, salute it, say- 
ing: Peace be to this house. 


21 For early use of this, vide infra, pp. 94, 163. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 23 


13 And if the house be worthy, your peace shall come 
upon it. But if it be not worthy, your peace shall return 
to you. 

14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your 
words, going forth out of that house or city shake off the 
dust from your feet. 

15 Amen I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the 
land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than 
for that city. 

16 Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. 
Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. 


PETER’S CONFESSION, — PETER, THE Rock 


As we have seen, Peter’s confession, ‘‘ Thou art the Christ,” 
as related in Mark is a very simple event, cut short with no 
specific implications and without further word from Jesus. But 
in Matthew it becomes something entirely different. It is made 
the basis for the selection by Jesus of Peter as the foundation 
for his Church and so gives rise to the strongest text in the 
arsenal of the Roman See in subsequent ages. 

The passage, as indicated below, is an enlargement of the 
account of Mark, containing in the added material two vital 
texts: in the eighteenth verse, the doctrinal interpretation of the 
name which Jesus had given Simon, — mentioned only casually 
in Mark III, 16; and in the nineteenth, the statement of what 
is known as “the doctrine of the keys.” 

The name Peter, by itself, says nothing to the English reader, 
since the word is not a common noun as well, although we have 
the root in a few Latinized words like petrify. Nor have we 
actually translated the proper noun, to convey its significance 
of “rock” or “stone.” In the original, as in some modern 
languages, the implication is apparent. For instance, in Italian 
Peter is Pietro and rock is petra, the two words differing merely 
in gender. The Italian thereby preserves the Latin Petrus and 
petra, which in turn go back to the Greek Ilérpos (Petros) 
and rérpa (petra). But in the Aramaic, the language in which 


24 THE SEE OF PETER 


Peter received his name, even the distinction of gender disap- 
pears, Kepha, — which the Greek rendered as xndds, Kephas, 
our Cephas, — being exactly the word for a rock,” just as in 
French Pierre is the same form and gender for common and 
proper noun. 

The name Peter would have little interest for history, if it 
had not been linked up with the interpretation given in full in 
this eighteenth verse of the sixteenth chapter of Matthew just 
mentioned. That interpretation, which has become the founda- 
tion text of the Papacy, has, however, been given varying inter- 
pretations itself. The orthodox Catholic view has been the simple 
and literal one, — that the rock was Peter (Kepha in both cases). 
But it was also held by some of the Fathers that it was the 
confession which Peter made — “ thou art Christ, the son of the 
living God” — which was the corner-stone of the Church, since 
upon that belief the new religion was in reality based. This 
view was especially seized upon by the Fathers who were dis- 
puting with the bishop of Rome or with the heretics who denied 
the orthodox statement of Christ’s divinity. Peter’s confession, 
ratified so emphatically by Jesus, was the strongest text they 
had.** In course of time, however, as the creed was settled, the 
literal meaning became the common one, exalting the “ fisher- 
man’s chair ” above the other apostolic foundations as the his- 
torical embodiment of Christ’s promise. This was not seriously 
challenged until the Protestant theologians found the text, as 
commonly accepted, a stumbling block in their denial of papal 
claims. Most of them fell back, then, to the interpretation first 
discussed, and found support in the fact that some of the Fathers 
had once so held. Others, however, have maintained that the 


22 Except for this formal naming, Jesus continues, according to the gospels, to 
call him Simon (except Luke XXII, 34, where the name Peter is added to the text 
of Mark XIV, 30). When referred to by the writers of the gospels and Acts, 
however, he is generally spoken of as Peter. In the fourth gospel, he is frequently 
given both names, Simon Peter, also once in Matthew and once in Luke. Peter is 
stated to be a surname in Matthew IV, 18. 

23 Infra, pp. 317, 589. Cf. Epiphanius, Haereses, 59. An exhaustive list of 
such citations is given by P. Ballerini in De Vi ac Ratione Primatus Romanorum 
Pontificum (1770), Chap. XII. There is even a considerable number of papal 
utterances to the same effect, and when Luther insisted upon this interpretation, 
Eck, the papal champion, replied (De Primatu Petri contra Lutherum, Chap. 
XIII) that no one denied it. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 25 


texts can be so construed as to imply that Jesus was referring 
to himself as the rock, and not to Peter at all. 

The passage runs as follows, bracketing the sections taken 
from Mark: 


XVI 13 [And when Jesus came into the quarters of 
Caesarea Philippi: he asked his disciples, saying: Whom 
do men say that| the Son of man [is? 

14 But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other 
some, Elias, and others] Jeremias or [one of the prophets. 

15 Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? 

16 Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ] 
the son of the living God. 

17 And Jesus answering saith to him: Blessed art thou, 
Simon Bar-Jona; because flesh and blood hath not revealed 
it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 

18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it. 

19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it 
shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.” 

20 [Then he commanded his disciples that they should 
tell no one that he was Jesus the Christ]. 


THE QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE AND THE APOSTOLIC 
SUCCESSION 


This central text for the Petrine claims does not stand en- 
tirely apart, however, from some others. It should be compared, 
first of all, with a similar charge to all the disciples, two chapters 
later in the same gospel (XVIII, 15-20). This text, as against 
the previous one, is a document for the episcopalian theologian, 
indicating a legitimate succession of ali the apostles, without 


24 A phrase in use in rabbinical literature in this sense. Cf. Isaias XXII, 22. 


26 THE SEE OF PETER 


regard to any special primacy of one. Moreover, if one were to 
press the interpretation, it might be asserted that these verses in 
the eighteenth chapter are more suggestive of ecclesiastical in- 
stitutions and episcopal jurisdiction than those in the sixteenth 
chapter, the grant of the power of absolution being in a setting 
that suggests rather definitely the institution of confession. 

However that may be, the trend of this text seems to be in 
line with that which Matthew (XIX, 27-30) adds to the dis- 
cussion in Mark (X, 23-31) about the rich man entering the 
kingdom of God. The rebuke to Peter for intimating an interest 
in the reward for the apostleship of himself and his fellow- 
disciples is used by Matthew, but with the wording changed to 
make it more definite. In doing this he inserts the striking clause, 
“Ve also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel,” which, if it presents an implication of equality, yet 
carries with it no suggestion of ecclesiasticism. Now the sig- 
nificant thing about this clause is that it is from Q, that early 
source which was also known to Luke. Indeed, this is the only 
sentence from Q which comes into our survey. The incident 
itself receives further development from Luke.” 

The request that James and John be seated on either side of 
Jesus in his kingdom, which we have already considered in Mark, 
is repeated in Matthew XX, 17-28, with variations which are 
relatively unimportant for our purpose. It is their mother who 
makes the request here; but the reply of Jesus is given in the 
words of Mark, and the rest of the incident — the indignation - 
of the ten other disciples, with Jesus’ further admonition — is 
also direct quotation. The passage is therefore not repeated here. 

Finally, in the very closing words of the gospel, Christ, giving 
his last charge to the apostles, is quoted as making no distinctions 
as to their power or mission. The extract seems to contain in- 
dications of interpolation, however, as in the reference (XXVIII, 
19) to the baptism in the name of the Trinity, which is a formula 
known to us only in relatively late sources. There is no parallel 
for it in the other gospels nor in the Acts nor in the Epistles of 
Paul. So critics are inclined to the conclusion that such an 


25 Cf. Luke XXII, 24-32; infra, p. 34. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 27 


isolated reference as this puts the text later than the early 
apostolic age; that, in short, it is a product of the time when the 
doctrine of the Trinity was developing under controversy. The 
Church of the second century, however, was not provided with 
sceptical textual critics, and the passage was viewed as containing 
the divine command. It will be recalled that at the close of Mark 
there is a passage, likewise suspected of being a late addition, 
in which in general terms Jesus, after his resurrection and return 
to Galilee, commits his cause to the apostles and gives them the 
power of miracle. This incident has become in the closing words 
of Matthew XXVIII, 16-20, a definite grant of succession. 
The three extracts run as follows: 


XVIII 15 But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, 
and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall 
hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. 

16 And if he will not hear thee: take with thee one or 
two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every 
word may stand. 

17 And if he will not hear them: tell it to the church. 
And if he will not hear the church: let him be unto thee as 
the heathen and publican. 

18 Amen I say to you, Whatsoever you shall bind upon 
earth shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you 
shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven. 

19 Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent 
upon earth concerning anything whatsoever they shall ask, 
it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven. 

20 For where there are two or three gathered together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them. 


XIX 27 Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we 
have left all things and have followed thee: what therefore 
shall we have? 

28 And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you that 


28 THE SEE OF PETER 


you, who have followed me, in the regeneration when the 
Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also 
shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 

29 And everyone that hath left house or brethren or 
sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for 
my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold and shall 
possess life everlasting. 

30 And many that are first shall be last: and the last 
shall be first. 


XXVIII 16 And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, 
unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 

17 And seeing him, they adored him: but some doubted. 

18 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power 
is given to me in heaven and in earth. 

19 Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them 
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost, 

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even 
to the consummation of the world. 


THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 


The Gospel of Luke was apparently written about the same 
time as the complete Matthew, the main proof of its date being 
that, although the author claims to have read many sources, he 
shows no acquaintance with the first gospel. He uses Mark and 
the Q text, but adds to them a different set of addenda from 
Matthew’s and gives them different editorial treatment. If, on 
the other hand, the supposition be true that he used the Antiqui- 
ties of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, he must have 
written later than 96 A.D. 

Internal evidence tends to exclude Judaea as the place of 
authorship. The gospel of Luke carries with it the note of 
Hellenistic Judaism, although it preserves in its composite narra- 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 29 


tive marks of the narrower Jewish conception.?® Eusebius re- 
cords a tradition that Luke was an Antiochean by birth,?’ and 
Antioch has been suggested as the probable place of origin of the 
completed gospel. But in that case there is difficulty in accepting 
the theory, referred to above, that the Gospel of Matthew origi- 
nated in Antioch as well; for even if Luke’s ignorance of Matthew 
might be explained by a prior dating of his text, that would 
merely transfer the problem to the text of Matthew. The sup- 
position that the Aramaic Christians of Antioch were so much 
out of touch with the Greek-speaking Christians as to make it 
possible for each group to produce a gospel of which the other 
was wholly ignorant is hard to follow. However, it is fortunately 
no part of the historical problem of this book to trace these texts 
far into the realm of conjectural origins. 

In order to judge what was the attitude toward Peter both 
in the sources used and in the circles using them which Luke 
represents, one should not separate the gospel from the book of 
Acts, which is its continuation. But our plan of analysis involves 
a division of the two phases of Peter’s life, — that of the disciple 
with Jesus, treated first, and that of the apostle, afterwards. 
Confining ourselves here, therefore, to the gospel, we are con- 
fronted with a relative poverty of references, and such as there 
are require little comment.” 


THE CALL 


In the first place, we have the story of the call, told in a dif- 
ferent mood from the simple, unembellished tale of Mark. Luke 
introduces a miracle, rearranging the order of the story slightly. 


V 3 And going into one of the ships, that was Simon’s, 
he desired him to draw back a little from the land. And 
sitting, he taught the multitudes out of the ship. 

4 Now when he had ceased to speak, he said to Simon: 


26 The reluctance to allow the Jewish Christians to eat unclean meats, as Paul 
was wont to do, is more clearly shown in Acts. 

27 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 4, 7. 

28 It is unnecessary to repeat every reference already given by Mark, where 
Luke simply quotes him, 


30 THE SEE OF PETER 


Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a 
draught. 

5 And Simon answering said to him: Master, we have 
laboured all the night, and have taken nothing: but at thy 
word I will let down the net. 

6 And when they had done this they enclosed a very 
great multitude of fishes: and their net broke. 

7 And they beckoned to their partners that were in the 
other ships, that they should come and help them. And 
they came, and filled both the ships, so that they were 
almost sinking. 

8 Which when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’ 
knees, saying: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O — 
Lord. 

9 For he was wholly astonished, and all that were with 
him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken; 

10 And so were also James and John, the sons of 
Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. And Jesus saith to 
Simon: Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. 

1r And having brought their ships to land, leaving all 
things, they followed him. 


THE TWELVE AND THE SEVENTY 


Similar to the treatment of “ the Call” is Luke’s narrative of - 
the appointment of the Twelve. Again, with but a slight change 
in the wording, we are given the incident described by Mark, but — 
there is an added touch of formality, indicating a definite setting 
apart of the twelve apostles, so that when Jesus appeared in 
public shortly afterwards he was accompanied by the group as 
a group, one to be distinguished henceforth from other men. 


VI 13 And when day was come, he called unto him his 
disciples: and he chose twelve of them (whom also he 
named apostles): 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 31 


14 Simon, whom he surnamed Peter, and Andrew his 
brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, 

15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, 
and Simon who is called Zelotes, 

16 And Jude the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, 
who was the traitor. 

17 And coming down with them, he stood in a plain 
place, and the company of his disciples, and a very great 
multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the 
sea-coast both of Tyre and Sidon. 


Luke’s treatment of the story of the appointment of the 
disciples by Jesus is important, less for its historical value than 
for the light it throws upon the way in which Luke handles his 
sources. Unlike Matthew, when he finds somewhat parallel in- 
cidents in Mark and in Q, he does not fuse them together. Since, 
therefore, Mark and Q had each a passage in which the disciples 
were sent upon their mission, charged with the gospel teaching 
and endowed with the power of miracle, Luke treats these as 
referring to two separate incidents, the one in which twelve were 
chosen, the other in which seventy were chosen. The text given 
below indicates by italics the part taken from Mark and by quota- 
tion marks that taken from Q. Comparison of these texts with 
those of Matthew shows that Luke applies to the Seventy whole 
sections of the Q texts which Matthew applies to the Twelve. 
With reference to the Seventy, it is interesting to find that 
Eusebius, in the early fourth century, could find no trace of a 
list of them,”® and some modern critics have conjectured that the 
symbolic number, seventy, was used by Luke as furnishing a 


29 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 1, 12, 1,3. “The names of the apostles of 
our Saviour are known to everyone from the gospels. But there exists no cata- 
logue of the seventy disciples.” Eusebius goes on to say that Clement of Alexan- 
dria called Barnabas one of the Seventy and insisted that the Cephas whom Paul 
withstood at Antioch was another; Matthias, the successor of Judas, and Thaddeus 
are also said to belong to the Seventy, — evidently from tradition. But “ upon 
examination you will find that our Saviour had more than seventy disciples, accord- 
ing to the testimony of Paul, who says that after his resurrection from the dead 
he appeared first to Cephas, then to the Twelve, and after them to five hundred 
brethren at once... .” 


32 THE SEE OF PETER 


proper setting for his text from Q, which would otherwise lack 
application.*° 

All of this seems to be taking us far from Peter and his 
apostleship. But the appointment of the whole body of disciples 
must also be considered as well as the call of Peter himself. 


IX 1 Then calling together the twelve apostles he “ gave 
them ”’ power and authority over all devils and to “ cure 
diseases.” 

2 And he sent them to “ preach the kingdom ” of God, 
and to heal the sick. 

3 And he said to them: Take nothing for your journey, 
neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, ‘‘nor money ”; neither 
have two coats. | 

4 And ‘“‘ whatsoever ” house you shall enter into abide 
there and depart not from thence. 

5 And whosoever will not receive you, ‘“‘ when ye go out 
of that city,” shake off even “the dust” of your feet for 
a testimony against them. 

6 And going out, they went about through the towns, 
preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere. 7 


X 1 And after these things, the Lord appointed also other 
seventy-two. And he sent them two and two before his face 
into every city and place, whither he himself was to come. 
2 And “he said to ” them: ‘‘ The harvest indeed is great, 
but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of 
the harvest that he send labourers into his harvest.” * 
3 Go: “ behold I send you as lambs in among wolves.” 
_4 Carry neither purse, “nor scrip, nor shoes”; and 
salute no man by the way. 


80 It should be recalled that there had been, traditionally, seventy translators 
of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, —the Septuagint, — and that the 
Jewish Sanhedrim had seventy elders. 

31 Cf, Matthew IX, 37, 38, where this text is used as a preface to the call 
to the Twelve. The following verse curiously enough was used by Matthew to 
close his narrative. The transposition is obviously not without design. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION © 33 


5 And “into whatsoever ” house “ ye enter,” first say, 
*“* Peace ” be to this house. 

6 And if a son of peace be there, “ your peace ”’ shall 
rest ‘upon him; but if not,” it shall ‘‘ return to you.” 

7 And in the same house, remain, eating and drinking 
such things as they have: for the labourer is worthy of his 
hire. Remove not from house to house. 

8 And ‘into what city soever you enter,” and they 
receive you, eat such things as are set before you. 

o And “heal the sick” that are therein, and say to 
them: ‘“ The kingdom of God is come nigh ” unto you. 

10 But “into whatsoever city you enter,” and they re- 
ceive you not, going forth into the streets thereof, say: 

1z Even ‘the very dust” of your city, that cleaveth 
to us, we wipe off against you. Yet know this, that “ the 
kingdom of God is at hand.” 

12 “‘I say to you, it shall be more tolerable at that day 
for Sodom than for that city.” 


PETER’S CONFESSION 


This event is treated by Luke as it came to him from Mark, 
with none of the additions of Matthew. Only the setting is 
changed. 


IX 18 And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his 
disciples also were with him: and he asked them, saying: 
Whom do the people say that I am? 

19 But they answered and said: John the Baptist; but 
some say, Elias; and others say that one of the former 
prophets is risen again. 

20 And he said to them: But whom do you say that I 
am? Simon Peter answering, said: The Christ of God. 

21 But he strictly charging them, commanded they 
should tell this to no man. 


34 THE SEE OF PETER 


THE QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE 


The text concerning the difficulty of the rich man entering the 
kingdom of God, which is used by Mark (X, 31) to bring in 
the text that the first shall be last, and by Matthew as the setting 
for the statement that the Twelve “ shall sit on twelve seats judg- 
ing the twelve tribes of Israel” (XIX, 28), lacks any such im- 
plications in Luke (XVIII, 28-30), where both these texts are 
omitted, leaving the incident one that does not bear upon our 
question. 

The dispute as to precedence, however, is dealt with at length 
in the twenty-second chapter, in a variant narrative which brings 
in the text promising the twelve thrones, which Luke omitted 
from the earlier passage. More significant, however, is the addi- 
tion of a new charge to Peter alone, which on the face of it seems 
to give Peter a distinct place over “the brethren.” Who the 
brethren are, and what the extent of the mission so entrusted to 
‘Peter will remain matters of controversy. 


XXII 24 And there was also a strife amongst them, which 
of them should seem to be the greater. 

25 And he said to them: The kings of the Gentiles lord 
it over them; and they that have power over them are called — 
beneficent. 7 

26 But you not so; but he that is the greater among 
you, let him become as the younger: and he that is the 
leader, as he that serveth. 

27 For which is greater, he that sitteth at table, or he 
that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at table? But I am 
in the midst of you, as he that serveth.” 

28 And you are they who have continued with me in 
my temptations. 

29 And I dispose to you, as my Father has disposed to 
me, a kingdom; 


32 It should be recalled that beginning with Gregory I the popes regularly took 
the title “ servus servorum Dei,” servant of the servants of God. 


. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 35 


30 That you may eat and drink at my table, in my 
kingdom: and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel. 

31 And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath 
desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. 

32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; 
and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren. 

33 Who said to him: Lord, I am ready to go with thee 
both into prison and to death. 

34 And he said: I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not 
crow this day till thou thrice deniest that thou knowest 
TNC 45) 545s 


THE APOSTLES AFTER THE RESURRECTION 


Finally, at the close of the gospel, it is intimated that Jesus 
appeared specially to Simon,—an event which undoubtedly 
would be regarded as of the greatest significance. The rest of 
the story is given in Acts, which is the continuation of this gospel. 


AXIV 33 And rising up, the same hour, they went back 
to Jerusalem: and they found the eleven gathered together, 
and those that were with them, 

34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared 
to Simon.” 


THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 


The authorship of the fourth gospel is the subject of the most 
serious controversy in the whole field of New Testament criticism. 
From early times, at least from the latter part of the second 
century, until the nineteenth, no one, except a few sceptical 
English Deists, questioned that it was written by St. John the 
Divine, that son of Zebedee who belonged, with his brother James 
and with Peter and Andrew, to the little group of Galilean fisher- 
men whom Jesus first chose, and who formed the most intimate 


33 Tt is not clear if this refers to the incident on the road to Emmaus, just 
related, or not. 


36 THE SEE OF PETER 


circle with Jesus. The gospel itself does not state this, but has 
a method of referring to the author without naming him, as 
the “ disciple whom Jesus loved,” a phrase which occurs several 
times.** Twice the indication of authorship by this disciple is 
definite: in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses of the 
nineteenth chapter, after describing how on the cross Jesus “ had 
seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved,” the 
writer tells how Mary was committed to the disciple’s keeping.** 
Then, after relating how Jesus died before the soldiers had broken 
his legs, as they did those of the others, and how they pierced his 
side, the text runs: “ And he that saw it hath given testimony: 
and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true: 
that you also may believe.” ** The statement that the author, or 
his source, was an eye-witness, and the inference that that eye- 
witness was the beloved disciple, is plain. But the passage con- 
tinues: “ For these things were done that the scripture might be 
fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him. And again another 
scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced.” 
Such an obviously doctrinal treatment of the incident as indicated 
by this latter part of the passage leaves some room for the scep- 
tical critic to doubt whether the attribution or implication of 
authorship is not on a par with the use of Messianic prophecy. 
The other reference to the author comes in the last chapter (XXI, 
24), where, after referring to Jesus’ last words concerning the 
beloved disciple, a similar assertion of authenticity occurs. “This 
is that disciple who giveth testimony of these things and hath 
written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.” 
Again, as above, the sceptical critic is inclined to feel that this 
protests somewhat overmuch for an account coming with all of 
the authority of an intimate disciple. Some one else, — “ we,” — 
verifies the narrative with something like an episcopal imprimatur. 
Indeed the whole of this last chapter reads like an appendix, 
added later. The gospel proper comes to a close at the end of 
the twentieth chapter, with which this does not readily connect. 
In addition to these two references to the author from the 


34 Vide XIII, 23 sqg.; XIX, 25-35; XX, 1-10. 
35 XTX, 27. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 37 


gospel itself, the opening passage of the First Epistle of John 
should also be cited as contributory evidence.*” 


I 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have 
looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life, 

2 For the life was manifest: and we have seen, and do 
bear witness and declare unto you the life, the life eternal, 
which was with the Father and hath appeared to us, 

3 That which we have seen and heard we declare unto 
you: that you also may have fellowship with us .. . 


5 And this is the declaration which we have heard from 
|s\tee 


For scholars agree that whoever wrote the gospel also wrote 
the epistles which go by the name of John. On the face of it, 
the question as to authorship might therefore seem settled; none 
of the other gospels has so definite a text. And yet the drift 
of criticism is more and more towards a denial of the apostolic 
authorship of the whole series, — gospel and epistles, — and also 
of Revelation, of which we have not spoken here. This is natu- 
rally a matter of importance in connection with the Petrine texts, 
for although there are few of much significance in the fourth 
gospel, the prominence of another apostle, whom Jesus especially 
loved and favored, bears upon the question of the primacy of 
Peter. | 

When we turn to the evidence of other sources, we find that 
the earliest to ascribe the gospel to John are from the end of the 
second century,— Theophilus of Antioch and the Muratorian 
Fragment.** ‘This is relatively late, but there is no contrary 
tradition; **® and from that time on the testimony of the Fathers 
is universally in favor of the Johannine authorship. As to John’s 


87 First Epistle of John I, 1-3, 5. 

38 Infra, p. 49, n. 60. 

89 A small sect in the second century, the Alogi, rejected it on doctrinal 
grounds, since they objected to its Jogos teaching. 


38 THE SEE OF PETER 


later life, there is a similar unanimity of statement, which runs 
in harmony with the supposition that he wrote the books. For 
it was held that he passed this time mainly in Ephesus — that 
seat of Pauline Christianity, which all agree was the city at which 
the books appeared. Irenaeus records that his former master 
Polycarp, bishop of the neighboring city of Smyrna, was a per- 
sonal disciple of the apostle John, — who lived in Ephesus until 
the reign of Trajan (98-117).*° 

The bishop of Ephesus in Irenaeus’ day, Polycrates,** adds 
similar testimony, and so does Clement of Alexandria.” All of 
these sources have been pieced together by Eusebius in the third 
book of his Church History, and have been accepted not merely 
as a preservation of tradition, but as direct documentary evi- 
dence.*® By the third century, the evidence was embellished with 
further details.** We need not, however, follow it further in its 
career. 

This, at first glance, would seem to make out an unquestion- 
able case for the Johannine authorship. Yet critics who are in- 
clined to reject it, point to the fact that Clement of Rome in his 


40 On Irenaeus vide infra, pp. 76, 261. His statements, that he studied under 
Polycarp and that Polycarp had known John, are in the Epistle to Florinus, 
written in the pontificate of Victor (see below) and quoted by Eusebius, Historia 
Ecclesiastica, V, 20, 5-6. ‘‘ For when I was a boy, I saw thee [Florinus] in lower 
Asia with Polycarp. ... I remember the events of that time more clearly than 
those of recent years. For what boys learn, growing with their mind, becomes 
joined with it; so that I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed 
Polycarp sat as he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and the 
manner of his life, and his physical appearance, and his discourses to the people, 
and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John and the others who 
had seen the Lord.” At the opening of the third book of his Adversus Haereses, 
written during the pontificate of Eleutherus, 174-189, A.p., Irenaeus further says 
that “ John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned upon his breast, published a 
gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.” (III, 1, i; cf. also III, 3, iv; 
II, 22, v.) 

41 The antagonist of Pope Victor in the paschal controversy. Vide infra, p. 
280. Polycrates was upholding the dignity of the Asian see against Rome, by 
reference to the apostolic foundation. ‘“ Moreover John, who was both a witness 
[uaprus] and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a 
priest wore the sacerdotal plate. He also sleeps at Ephesus.” (Eusebius, Historia 
mace sah III, 31, 3.) Legend (or the needs of a polemic) seems already at 
work. 

42 In Quis Dives Salvetur, XLII; Eusebius, op. cit., III, 23. 

43 Cf, A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age (New 
York, rev. ed., 1916), p. 606, n. 2, referring to Irenaeus, ‘ Weizsacker justly re- 
marks that this is not tradition, but documentary evidence. (Eng. Trans., II, 
p. 168.)” 

44 Tertullian added the miracle of John surviving an immersion in boiling oil. 
Infra, p. 294. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 39 


epistle to the Corinthians, written at the close of the first cen- 
tury, refers to the apostles as though they were all dead at 
that time,*® and call attention to the silence of Ignatius, who 
wrote a letter to Ephesus a few years later without a reference 
to John. They point out how, during the sub-apostolic age, the 
process of legend-making began at an early date and often by 
way of apocryphal books attributed to apostles and supported 
by an ever widening cycle of traditions. They maintain, there- 
fore, that the evidence of Irenaeus, writing over three quarters 
of a century later, is, after all, not contemporary. But their main 
reason for the rejection comes from the content of the gospel 
itself. They assert that the little we know of John through 
Paul’s reference in Galatians (II, 9) and Mark’s description 
(I, 19; IX, 37, 38; X, 35-41) gives no impression of the kind 
of man who could write a book like the fourth gospel. They see 
in it a treatise written with the purpose of giving the authority 
of Christ to an ‘orthodox’ doctrine, — emphasizing his life 
‘according to the flesh” as over against the Docetists, who had 
carried Paul’s insistence upon the Spirit to such an extent as to 
regard Jesus as a phantom, unsubstantial, merely appearing like 
aman. The keynote of this gospel is given at the first; it is a 
story of how “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us ” 
(I, 14). Its purpose is not, say these critics, what Eusebius 
claimed it was, to supply an account of what the other three 
evangelists had omitted,— mainly the deeds done by Jesus at 
the beginning of his ministry,*° — but to offer an interpretation 
of the life,— drawn largely from different sources, unknown to 
us, — which would carry conviction to his readers, but which the 
critic of today finds less reliable than the narrative of the first 
three gospels. 

The only points upon which there seems to be substantial 
agreement are that the gospel was written at Ephesus, and that 
its date is about 105 to 110 A.D. 

Obviously the historical value of the texts in the fourth gospel 
depends upon whether it was written by John or not. If it is a 
product of an external tradition, compounded of doctrine and 


45 Vide infra, pp. 237-238. 46 Eusebius, op. cit., III, 24, 8. 


40 THE SEE OF PETER 


miraculous legend, its evidence as to the relations of Jesus with 
Peter is of no historical value whatever. But, on the other hand, 
whether originally valid or not, from the second century it has 
been accepted as genuinely Johannine, and that belief is itself a 
historic fact, investing the gospel with the full degree of apostolic 
authority throughout the Church’s history. 


THE CALL 


As we have indicated, there are few separate passages bearing 
upon Peter’s life. The fourth gospel has little to say on the 
apostolic history; it concentrates upon Jesus’ teaching and 
miracles. In fact the entire treatment of the history is different 
from that of the other three gospels. ‘This is evident at the very 
outset, where the scene of the call of Peter is transferred from 
the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan at the time of the baptism of 
Jesus by John the Baptist. The naming of Simon “ Peter” is 
also brought into the same incident.* 


I 35 The next day again John stood and two of his dis- 
ciples; 

36 And beholding Jesus walking, he saith: Behold, the 
Lamb of God. 

37 And the two disciples heard nim for and they 
followed Jesus. 

38 And Jesus turning, and seeing them following him, 
saith to them: What seek you? Who said to him, Rabbi 
(which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwellest 
thoue 

39 He saith to them: Come, and see. They came and 
saw where he abode: and they stayed with him that day. 
Now it was about the tenth hour. 

40 And Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of 
the two who had heard of John and followed him. 


47 Unless one takes the future tense to mean that Jesus will some day later 
bestow the name Peter (as in F. Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, 5 vols., Paris, 
1895-1912, Article, ‘‘ Pierre”), which seems to make the text rather a lame one, 
especially inasmuch as John has no later reference to it. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 4I 


AI He findeth first his brother Simon, and saith to him: 
We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the 
Christ. 

42 And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looking 
upon him, said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona. Thou 
shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter. 


PETER’S CONFESSION 


Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ, which Matthew 
uses as the basis for the grant of the keys, is entirely lacking in 
the fourth gospel, the nearest approach to it being in VI, 67-72 
(King James’ Version, verses 66-71), when the followers of 
Jesus were leaving him because of his veiled references to his 
death.** Peter, whose name had not been mentioned since the 
scene at the Jordan, spoke up, but not in exactly the phrase of 
Mark or Matthew. The passage also contains the first reference 
to the Twelve. It is typical of the gospel that it is so casual. 
The author draws no further implication from the incident but 
turns abruptly to another theme. 


VI 67 After this, many of his disciples went back, and 
walked no more with him. 

68 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go 
away? 

69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall 
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. 

70 And we have believed and have known that thou art 
the Christ, the Son of God.” 

71 Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve? 
And one of you is a devil. 

48 The reference bears indications of the familiarity on the part of the writer 
with later church services, as the eucharist is obviously in his mind. “ Except ye 
eat of the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in your- 
zee The King James Version has “ that Christ, the Son of the living God,” as 


in Matthew. The Revised Version, following a different text, has “thou art the 
Holy One of God.” 


42 THE SEE OF PETER 


72 Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon; for 
this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of 
the twelve. 

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 


In the body of the fourth gospel, none of the vital texts for 
the Petrine theory is repeated. The only passages in which Peter 
plays a distinctive réle are the feet-washing scene, in which 
Peter was the only one of the disciples who objected to Jesus’ 
action (XIII, 5-11), the statement that it was Peter who drew 
his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest 
(XVIII, ro-11),°° and the story of Peter’s denial of Christ 
(XIII, 36-38, XVIII, 15-27). At the last supper (XIII, 23- 
25), it is not Peter but the ‘one of his disciples whom Jesus 
loved”’ who is closest to Jesus. Peter has to beckon to him to 
question Jesus about the delicate problem as to who is the traitor, 
not venturing himself.** At the crucifixion, as we have seen,” the 
beloved disciple was alone to support Mary, the mother of Jesus. 
And finally when Mary Magdalene found the tomb open and 
ran “‘ to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved ” 
to tell them, the two ran to the tomb, and the “ other disciple did 
outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre” (XX, 4), al- 
though Peter entered first into the tomb (XX, 6-8). Whether 
this prominence of John in the narrative was the historic fact, 
as preserved in John’s own memory and recorded by him, — as 
the orthodox hold, — or was due to the same insistence upon the 
part of the anonymous author, —as the critics believe, — that 
the source of this gospel was the most authentic representative of 
Jesus’ teaching, the fact remains that the fourth gospel so far 
offers no text in which Jesus singles out Peter for primacy. 

On the other hand, after the resurrection, Christ bestows the 
power of the keys upon all the disciples together. 


XX 19 Now when it was late, that same day, the first of 
the week, and when the doors were shut, where the disciples 


50 Vide supra, p. 16. 

51 XTII, 23. Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom 
Jesus loved. 24. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, and said to him: Lord 
who is it of whom he speaketh? 52 Vide supra, p. 36. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 43 


were gathered together, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and 
stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be to you. 

20 And when he had said this, he shewed them his hands 
and his side. The disciples therefore were glad, when they 
saw the Lord. 

21 He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you: 
As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. 

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, 
and said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 

23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: 
and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. 


THE PASTORAL CHARGE 


The last chapter of the fourth gospel is regarded by some 
critics aS an appendix, written by another hand. The gospel 
narrative comes to a fitting close at the end of chapter twenty. 
The story ends, like Luke’s, in Jerusalem; and apostolic succes- 
sion is given to all the apostles together, as we have just seen. 
Throughout the whole gospel, Peter plays no preéminent role; it 
is John who is the favorite, the intimate companion. This is the 
character of the narrative, which ends at the close of the twentieth 
chapter by a formal statement that this is all there is in this 
gospel: ‘‘ Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of his 
disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are 
written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (XX, 
30, 31). The opening words of the next chapter indicate that 
it was added as a supplement, — whoever wrote it. ‘‘ After this, 
Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias.” 
The use of this name for the Sea of Galilee shows that it was 
added in the second century. When one turns to the contents 
of the chapter, the trend is seen to be quite different from that 
of the rest of the gospel. For here Peter is exalted, both in 
figurative and in direct language, finally receiving a charge for 
which the rest of the gospel seems to have furnished little prepa- 
ration. It is true that ‘the beloved disciple” is still the dis- 


44 THE SEE OF PETER 


cerning one (verse 7), but it is Peter who alone pulls in the net 
and who is then, after a meal described in terms suggestive of 
eucharistic ritual (verse 13),°° singled out by Jesus with the 
impressively reiterated ‘‘ Feed my lambs.” It has, therefore, 
been suggested that this appended chapter was written to give 
a Petrine close to a gospel which, proceeding from a center of 
Pauline Christianity, Ephesus, had the great name of John as 
witness of a story of the life of Jesus, rich in novel detail and 
emphatic in its assertion of authority, treating Peter as a person 
of secondary importance even among the disciples. The last 
chapter made more easy accommodation for this gospel alongside 
the other three, in so far as a consistent catholic, apostolic tradi- 
tion was sought. Some critics therefore suggest that it was added 
in Rome. 

One need not accept these hypotheses nor follow the specula- 
tions based upon them. The fact remains, however, that in the 
last chapter of the fourth gospel we have a definite Petrine 
passage. Just how much we should make out of it is a matter 
of interpretation, in which the doctrinal bias of the interpreter 
will tend to show itself. The chapter, as will be seen, is divided 
into three main sections: the first includes the first fourteen 
verses, dealing with the miraculous draught of fishes which Peter 
pulls in; the second, verses 15, 16 and 17, contains what is known 
as the Pastoral Charge; the rest of the chapter contains references 
to Peter’s death and John’s old age. A postscript from the author 
closes the chapter. The main difficulty lies in the meaning of 
the first section. Taken literally, it hardly seems to have any 
bearing upon the problem. But was it meant to be taken liter- 
ally? The literature of that period was so largely symbolical 
that it seems to some modern critics more easy of interpretation 
if viewed in the light of an allegory than if taken as a record of 
historical fact. This seems like a far-fetched explanation until 
one turns to the comparative study of actual literature of the 


53 The symbol of the fish in early Christianity became one of the commonest 
emblems in connection with the worship, as evidenced in very early Christian 
archaeology, although literary reference is not found prior to Clement of Alexandria 
(Paedagogus III, XI). Its adoption was probably largely due to the fact that 
the Greek word for fish Ichthus (’Iy@is) is composed of the initials of the Greek 
words for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior (’Iycots Xpiarés Geod Tids Zwrnp). 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 45 


time, of which the book of Revelation, attributed also to the same 
author as the gospel, is our best known example. It is not sug- 
gested here that the text should be interpreted allegorically, but 
the student of papal history ought to know that it is so inter- 
preted by highly qualified scholarship. The allegory may be 
viewed as complete or partial; that is, the incident may be re- 
garded as having been invented by the writer, or may be accepted 
as based upon fact, with the implications simply stressed by 
having Peter alone draw in the unbroken net of fishes. Jerome, 
commenting upon this last, says that the number of fishes, 153, 
was held by naturalists to be the full number of all species of 
fish in existence. The miracle was cast in conventional terms, 
whether it refers to the unity of the Church under Petrine rule 
or not. 

The Pastoral Charge and the last section offer no such ob- 
scurities. Peter “is invested by Jesus with the insignia and 
office of chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, the stain. of 
his threefold denial wiped out by a threefold opportunity to 
prove his special love by special service, and the ignominy of 
his previous failure to ‘ follow’ (XIII, 36-38) atoned for by 
the promise that in old age he shall have opportunity to follow 
Jesus in martyrdom (XXI, 19). There remains nothing that the 
most exacting friend of ‘ Catholic’ apostolicity could demand 
in the way of tribute to its great representative.” °* 


XXI 1 After this, Jesus shewed himself again to the dis- 
ciples at the sea of Tiberias; and he shewed himself after 
this manner. 

2 There were together Simon Peter and Thomas, who 
is called Didymus, and Nathanael who was of Cana of 
Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his 
disciples. 

3 Simon Peter saith to them: I go a fishing. They say 
to him: We also come with thee. And they went forth and 
entered into the ship: and that night they caught nothing. 


54 B. W. Bacon, The Making of the New Testament (New York, 1912), pp. 
241-242. The treatment of this chapter is especially full in this little book, 


46 THE SEE OF PETER 


4 But when the morning was come, Jesus stood on the 
shore: yet the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. 

5 Jesus therefore saith to them: Children, have you any 
meat? They answered him: No. 

6 He saith to them: Cast the net on the right side of 
the ship; and you shall find. They cast therefore: and now 
they were not able to draw it, for the multitude of fishes. 

7 That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved said to 
Peter: It is the Lord. Simon Peter, when he heard that it 
was the Lord, girt his coat about him (for he was naked) 
and cast himself into the sea. 

8 But the other disciples came in the ship (for they were 
not far from the land, but as it were two hundred cubits) 
dragging the net with fishes. 

go As soon then as they came to land, they saw hot coals 
lying, and a fish laid thereon, and bread. 

10 Jesus saith to them: Bring hither of the fishes which 
you have now caught. 

tr Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full 
of great fishes, one hundred and fifty-three. And although 
there were so many, the net was not broken. 

12 Jesus saith to them: Come and dine. And none of 
them who were at meat, durst ask him: Who art thou? 
knowing that it was the Lord. 

13 And Jesus cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth 
them: and fish in like manner. 

14 This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested 
to his disciples, after he was risen from the dead. 

15 When therefore they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon 
Peter: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these? 
He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. 
He saith to him: Feed my lambs. 

16 He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest 
thou me? He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 47 


I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my lambs. 

17 He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, 
lovest thou me? Peter was grieved, because he had said to 
him the third time: Lovest thou me? And he said to him: 
Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee. 
He said to him: Feed my sheep. 

18 Amen, amen, I say to thee, when thou wast younger, 
thou didst gird thyself, and didst walk where thou wouldst. 
But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy 
hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither 
thou wouldst not. 

19 And this he said, signifying by what death he should 
glorify God. And when he had said this, he saith to him: 
Follow me. 


2. PETER AND THE OTHER APOSTLES 


Over against such texts as these concerning the réle of Peter 
during the life of Christ, which, in order to be fully appreciated, 
should, of course, be taken in their context, the following cita- 
tions from Acts and the Epistles indicate his activity and leader- 
ship after the resurrection, in the earliest days of the Church. 
While they also should be studied in their setting along with the 
rest of the documents in which they are embedded, the following 
summary may help to place them historically and serve as an 
indication of their value. 

The Acts of the Apostles opens with a section which might 
be termed either the New Gospel of the Holy Spirit, since it is 
the dominating presence, or the Acts of Peter and the Apostles, 
since he is the leading personality, as Paul is in the latter part. 
At the very first, we have the retrospective reference to Jesus 
“ siving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the apostles whom 
he had chosen,” which, apparently, places emphasis upon the 
body as a whole. But it is Peter who takes the initiative in the 
first act of the apostles to elect a successor to Judas (Acts I, 
15-26). The next great event is Pentecost; Peter is the speaker, 


48 THE SEE OF PETER 


although the rest of the Twelve are with him (II, 14), and when 
the people ask them what they shall do, it is Peter who replies 
(II, 37-39). Then comes the gift of miracles; this time John 
is associated with Peter, but somewhat secondarily (III, 1, 5, 
11-12; IV, 1, 8, 13, 19). Peter’s prominence in this line of 
activity is, however, clearly indicated in V, 15, where it is Peter’s 
shadow which is especially mentioned as having “ virtue” in it. 
In outward defiance of the Jewish priesthood and bold assertion 
of their own divine mission Peter is the chief spokesman (IV, 8, 
19; V, 29). Meanwhile the community itself is taking shape; its 
quasi-communal character is described in IV, 32-35, and there 
is a glimpse of its management in the incident of Ananias and 
Sapphira. They bring their goods to “the apostles’ feet,” but 
it is Peter who rebukes and convicts them (V, 1-11). The 
extension of Christianity into Samaria, — that “ border-land 
. . . between Judaism and Heathendom,” — follows as the next 
great stage in the history. Peter leads here, but does not act 
alone. ‘“‘ The mission to Samaria, which gives its sanction to 
Philip’s action, is the mission of the whole apostolate, and here 
again John is associated with him.” » | 

In Samaria, it is Peter who meets and rejects Simon Magus, 
the “ father of the Gnostics ”°* (VIII, 18, 20) and, more im- 
portant yet, to him is revealed the great fact that Christianity 
is to be opened to the Gentiles. The significance of this great 
step can hardly be over-estimated (X and XI). Peter disappears 
from the narrative of Acts after Herod’s persecution except to 
reappear at the Council in Jerusalem in 51 A.D. (XV, 6 sqq.), and 
then we hear no more of him. But in the passages from Galatians 
and Second Corinthians quoted below, we have Paul’s very clear 
and emphatic statement as to his conception of the relationship 
existing among the apostles. He went up to Jerusalem to visit 
not the apostles but Cephas (Gal. I, 18); yet he acknowledges 
no pretensions to a position higher than his own (Gal. II, 6 sqq.; 
CG Sy, 

55 J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1889— 
1890), Pt. I, Vol. II, pp. 489-490. 


56 On the legend of Simon Magus and its part in the later conception of 
Peter as the first great opponent of heresy, vide infra, p. 124 and seq. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 49 


Such are the texts. The interpretation is open to infinite 
controversy. It is largely a matter of emphasis. For instance, 
the Episcopalian is struck with the prominence of John along with 
Peter, Paul’s attitude, and the texts which indicate a solidarity 
of the apostolate.°’ ‘The Catholic sees Peter’s figure looming 
large above the group, and insists on his initiative in the crises 
of the Church.** Those who reject apostolic succession altogether 
are not so vitally concerned with the interpretation, and may 
seriously question the historical value of the documents them- 
selves. In this connection, it may be well to recall that possible 
division of Acts into two parts: Chapters I to XII, ‘“‘ The Acts 
of Peter,” Chapters XIII to XXVIII, ‘The Acts of Paul.” 
The historical accuracy of the second part is now generally held 
to be considerably greater than that of the earlier part, where 
the writer seems to be somewhat away from his material.°® It is 
possible, therefore, to reserve judgment on the scheme of the 
narrative which places Peter at the fore in all the early crises. 
During the opening chapters at least, the author does not handle 
his sources with the sure touch of the later part. The tradition 
he embodies may have already been tinged by the inevitable 
tendency of traditions to develop the rédle of a hero. Such is the 
point of view of advanced criticism. But the ‘‘ eloquent silence ” 
of the latter part of Acts, with reference to Peter, loses some of 
the force of its argument against the Petrine claims when we 
recall the Pauline and partial character of its survey of the 
situation. Because Peter drops out of sight in the Acts it is not 
necessary to suppose that he dropped out of sight in the work 
of the Church. The first step in historical criticism is to recog- 
nize the inadequacy of one’s sources. This is commented upon 
already in the Muratorian Fragment of about 180 A.D. Luke 
records only those things done in his own presence, “ as he plainly 
shows by leaving out the passion of Peter and also the departure 
of Paul from town on his journey to Spain.” °° 

57 See the fine summary of Bishop J. B. Lightfoot, op. cit., Pt. I, vol. II, 
PP. 488-490. 

58 See the decree of the Vatican Council on Infallibility, Chapter I, in H. Den- 
zinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum (Freiburg, 1911), pp. 483-484. 


59 It is supposed that these early chapters of Acts rest upon an Aramaic source. 
60 The Muratorian Fragment is a small section of a document of unknown 


50 THE SEE OF PETER 


THE EVIDENCE OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 
(a.) The Final Charge to the Apostles 
(Acts I, 1-8) 


I 1 The former treatise “ I made, O Theophilus, of all 
that Jesus began to do and to teach, 

2 Until the day on which giving commandments by the 
Holy Ghost to the apostles whom he had chosen, he was 
taken up.” 

3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his pas- 
sion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them and 
speaking of the kingdom of God: 

4 And, eating together with them, he commanded them 
that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait 
for the promise of the Father, which you have heard (saith 
he) by my mouth. 

5 For John indeed baptized with water: but you shall 
be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. 

6 They therefore who were come together asked him, 
saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the King- 
dom to Israel? 

7 But he said to them: It is not for you to know the 
times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own 
power. | 
8 But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost 
coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the 
uttermost part of the earth. 


authorship, found by the Italian historian Muratori in Milan, and published by 
him in the Antiquitates Italicae in 1740. It is given in C. Mirbt, Quellen zur 
Geschichte des Papsttums (Tiibingen, 1924), p. 12; C. Kirch, Enchiridion Fontium 
in J. C. Ayer, A Source Book for Ancient Church History (New York, 1913), 
pp. 117-120. 681 The reference is to the Gospel of Luke. 

62 Cf. Luke XXIV, 48, 49. “ And you are witnesses of these things. And I 
send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay you in the city, till you be 
endued with power from on high.”’ The connection between this verse and the 
opening of Acts is self-evident. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 51 


(b.) The First Initiative 
(Acts I, 15) 


I 15 In those days, [when the group of disciples had come 
together after the resurrection| Peter rising up in the midst 
of the brethren, said .. . 


(c.) Peter at Pentecost 
(Acts IT, 14, 37, 38) 


II 14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his 
voice... 

37 Now when they [the multitude] had heard these 
things, they . . . said to Peter and to the rest of the 
apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? 

38 But Peter said unto them, Do penance: and be bap- 
mized.) 3°." 


(d.) Miracles and Preaching at Jerusalem 
Seed) tO, 11,12; IV, r, 8,13, 19; V, 12, 15, 17-18, 29) 


III x: Now Peter and John went up into the temple at the 
ninth hour of prayer. .. . 

2 And a certain man that was lame from his mother’s 
womb was carried: whom they laid every day at the gate of 
the temple . . . that he might ask alms of them that went 
into the temple; 

3 He, when he had seen Peter and John about to go 
into the temple, asked to receive an alms. 

4 But Peter with John, fastening his eyes upon him, 
said, Look upon us. 3 

5 But he looked earnestly upon them, hoping that he 
should receive something of them. 

83 The significance of Peter’s leadership in this first crisis of the Church, as 


seen by the writer of Acts, is further shown by his statement, in the forty-first 
verse, that some 3000 were added to the church that day. 


52 | THE SEE OF PETER 


6 But Peter said: Silver and gold I have none; but 
what I have, I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, arise and walk. ... 

tz And as he held Peter and John, all the people ran 
to them to the porch... . 

12 But Peter seeing, made answer to the people: Ye 
men of Israel, why wonder you. ... [|The sermon lasts 
to the end of the chapter. The opening words of the next 
chapter, however, indicate that John also preached. | 


IV x And as they were speaking to the people .. . 

8 [Upon an inquiry from the high priest and rulers] 
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them: Ye 
princes of the people . . | 

13 Now seeing the constancy of Peter and of John. . 
[they attempted to quell the disturbance |. 

19 But Peter and John answering said to them: If it 
be just, in the sight of God, to hear you rather than God, 
judge ye. . 
V 12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs 
and wonders wrought among the people. And they were 
all with one accord in Solomon’s porch . . . 

15 ... they brought forth the sick into the streets, 
and laid them on beds and couches, that, as Peter came, his 
shadow at the least might overshadow any of them and 
they might be delivered from their infirmities. | 

17-18 . . . the high priest . . . and all they that were 
with him . . . laid hands on the apostles . . . 

29 But Peter and the apostles answering said, We ought 
to obey God rather than men. 


(e.) The Oversight of the Community 
(Acts V, 1-8) . 


V «2... Ananias... laid it at Sthessieee sre 
apostles. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 53 


3 But Peter said: Ananias, why hath Satan tempted thy 
heart . 

oe Eten his wife, not Caged what had happened, 
came in. 

8 And Peter, said to her... 


({.) The Mission to Samaria ™ 


(Acts VIII, 14) 
VIII 14 Now when the apostles who were in Jerusalem, 
heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent 
unto them Peter and John. 


(g.) Simon Magus Overcome 


| (Acts VIII, 18, 19) 
VIII 18 And when Simon saw that, by the imposition of 
the hands of the apostles, the Holy Ghost was given, he 
offered them money, .. . 
19... But Petersaidtohim... 


(h.) Acceptance of Gentiles, the Vision of Peter °° 


(Acts X, 34) 
X 34 And Peter opening his mouth said, In very deed I 
perceive that God is not a respecter of persons. 


(i.) The Council at Jerusalem 

acts XV, 6,,7,.8,.12, 13; 19) 
XV 6 And the apostles and ancients were assembled to 
consider of this matter. 

7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rising 
up, said to them, Men, brethren, you know how that in 
former days God made choice among us, that by my mouth 
the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 

64 The details of the mission to Samaria are omitted. 


85 The whole account of Peter’s vision and its consequences should be read in 
this connection. 


54 THE SEE OF PETER 


8 And God, who knoweth the hearts, gave testimony, 
giving unto them the Holy Ghost, as well as to us. 

12... and they heard Barnabas and Paul telling what 
great signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gen- 
tiles by them. 

13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, 
Saying kei; 

19... I judge that they “ 


THE EVIDENCE OF THE EPISTLES OF PAUL - 
Paul and Peter 


(Galatians I, 15-19) 
I 15 But when it pleased him ~. 

16 To reveal his Son in me [Paul] that I might reat 
him among the Gentiles: immediately I condescended not 
to flesh and blood: 

17 Neither went I to Jerusalem to the apostles who 
were before me: . 

18 Then after three years I | Paul] went to Jerusalem to 
see Peter: and I tarried with him fifteen days. 

19 But other of the apostles I saw none, saving James 
the brother of the Lord. 


Peter and Paul in Antioch 
(Galatians II, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14) 


II 1 Then .. . after fourteen years I went up again to 
Jerusalem . 
2... and communicated to them the gospel which I 


preach among the Gentiles: but apart to them who seemed 


66 Note that James assumes personal responsibility for the decision. The 
King James Version reads: “ Whereupon my judgment is that we,” etc. 

67 Verse 9 explains who is meant by “them who seemed to be some thing,” 
the three who already held positions of influence and authority in the rising Church. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 55 


to be some thing:* lest perhaps I should run or had run 
invain. .... 

6 But of them who seemed to be some thing (what they 
were some time, it is nothing to me. God accepteth not the 
person of man): for to me they that seemed to be some 
thing, added nothing. 

7 But contrariwise, when they had seen that to me had 
been intrusted the gospel of the uncircumcision, as to Peter 
was that of the circumcision: 

8 (For he who wrought in Peter to the apostleship of the 
circumcision wrought in me also among the Gentiles.) 

9 And when they had known the grace that was given 
to me, James and Cephas * and John, who seemed to be 
pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellow- 
ship: that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto 
the circumcision. . 

11 But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood 
him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 

12 For before that some came from James, he did eat 
with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew 
and separated himself, fearing them who were of the cir- 
Gumcision. .. . 

14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly unto 
_ the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: 
If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles 
and not as the Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles 
to live as do the Jews? 


Paul’s Estimate 
(2 Corinthians XI, 5) 
XI 5 For I suppose that I [Paul] have done nothing less 
than the great “ apostles. 


68 It will be remembered that Cephas is the Anglicized form of Kepha, the 
Aramaic equivalent of Peter. Vide supra, pp. 23-24. 
69 The King James Version has “ chiefest ” instead of “ great.” 


56 THE SEE OF PETER 


THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE 
(Revelation XXI, 14) 


XXI 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations: 
and in them, the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the 
Lamb. | 


3. PETER IN ROME AND THE FOUNDING OF THE 
ROMAN CHURCH ” 


As seen in the last section, Peter is prominent in the first part 
of the narrative of Acts. But in the twelfth chapter we come 
upon the persecution by Herod, and after Peter’s escape from 
prison, we have the simple statement that he said, “‘ Tell these 
things to James and to the brethren. And going out he went 
into another place” (Acts XII, 17). This is the last we hear 
of Peter until he reappears some years later at the so-called 
Council of Jerusalem, 51 a.p. (Acts XV, 6 sqqg. and see above), 
and then we have no further reference to him in Acts, which is 
more Pauline in its latter part than Petrine in the first. James 
is president of the council; Paul declares his own equality with 
the “ great apostles”; Peter disappears. Later he is in Antioch 
(Galatians II, 11). He cannot have been in Rome when Paul 
wrote his Epistle to the Romans, for he is not mentioned among 
the brethren to whom greetings are sent. Nor was he there when 
Paul wrote from Rome during his captivity. 

The First Epistle of Peter has been the fundamental text for 
the contention that Peter was in Rome. Its closing salutation, 
“The church that is in Babylon . . . saluteth you” (1 Peter V, 
13), refers undoubtedly to Rome. Babylon was then in ruins, 
and there was no tradition for five centuries that Peter had been 
there, whereas the tradition connecting him with Rome is one of 
_ the strongest in the Church. Babylon is used for Rome in the 
Sibylline Oracles and in Revelation (XIV, 8; XVI, 19; XVII, 


70 In view of the fragmentary nature of the evidence on this question, the 
texts here have been largely embodied in the discussion. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 57 


5; XVIII, 2, 10). The genuineness of the epistle was already 
established in the second century, after its use by Hermas, Papias, 
the Second Epistle of Peter (which is not by him), etc., and is 
still generally accepted. 

It is possible that isolated converts may have been living in 
Rome before a formal organization was made.” There had been 
“strangers of Rome, Jews also and proselytes ” at Pentecost in 
Jerusalem (Acts II, 10-11), some of whom, hearing Peter, may 
have become Christian. Suetonius, the Roman historian, writing 
in the first quarter of the second century, refers to an uproar 
among the Jews in 49 A.D. “He [Claudius] expelled from Rome 
the Jews, who were making incessant disturbances, one Chrestus 
being the instigator [impulsore Chresto].’** The spelling 
Chrestus was common for Christus, so if Suetonius got this fact 
right,"* the Christians were there by 49 A.D. at least.” The next 
evidence we have on the Christians at Rome is Paul’s Epistle to 
the Romans, written 54 or 55 A.D. Although he throws no light 
on how Christianity had been introduced among them, he states 
that their ‘‘ faith is spoken of in the whole world ” (Romans I, 8), 
and the passage in the fifteenth chapter (especially v. 20) may 
very well be taken to imply that Paul delayed his visit to Rome 
owing to Peter having preached there before. He is not going 
to found a church, but merely to pay a visit on his way to Spain. 
Indeed the Roman Christians are addressed with some deference, 
and he honors them by his greatest theological treatise, “ the 
public exposition of his gospel.”’* The passage in question is 
from the nineteenth through the twenty-fifth verse, of the fif- 
teenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: 

71 Cf. R. H. Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah (London, 1900), p. lix; J. B. 
Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. I, Vol. II, p. 492. 

72 For one traditional account of the origin of the Roman church, see the 
Pseudo-Clementine Literature, infra, p. 166. 

73 Life of Claudius, c. 25. aie 

74 Suetonius was, apparently, not very careful in his handling of the incident. 
Dio Cassius, at least, says that as they proved too many to be expelled, they were 
merely brought under the laws against unlicensed societies (collegia). 

75 This is the persecution of the Jews referred to in Acts XVIII, 2. The name 
Christ being a Messianic title, it is possible that the Jewish disturbances were dis- 
putes over some other imagined Messiah and that the Christians played no part 
in them. 


76 R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1901), p. 362. (Cf. 
Muratorian Fragment.) 


58 THE SEE OF PETER 


XV 19... from Jerusalem, round about, as far as unto 
Illyricum, I have replenished the gospel of Christ. 

20 And I have so preached this gospel, not where Christ 
was named, lest I should build upon another man’s founda- 
tion. 

21 But, as it is written: They to whom he was not 
spoken of shall see: and they that have not heard shall 
understand. 

22 For which cause also, I was hindered very much from 
coming to you, 

23 But now, having no more place in these countries 
and having a great desire these many years past to come 
unto you, 

24 When I shall begin to take my journey into Spain, 
I hope that, as I pass, I shall see you *" and be brought 
on my way thither by you: if first, in part, I shall have 
enjoyed you. 

25 But now, I shall go to jotuenten to minister to the 
saints. 


On the other hand, judging from the account in Acts 
XXVIII, 21, when Paul arrived in Rome (58 a.D.), he found 
the Jews ignorant of his doings, which seems strange, had Peter 
(and Mark) been instructing them before, for in that case they 
would have established direct connections with Jerusalem. 

If Peter preceded Paul to Rome, it has been suggested that — 
it was between his disappearance from Palestine in 44 A.D. and 
his return to Jerusalem in 48 a.p. (Acts XII and XV), the “ other 
place” of Acts XII, 17, being Rome. Jerome, in his life of 
St. Peter, states that Peter came to Rome “in the second year 
of Claudius,” or 42 A.p.; and although Jerome wrote at the end 
of the fourth century, he may have relied on earlier sources.” 
Upon the whole, there seems nothing improbable in the tradition 
and the belief of Catholic writers in St. Peter’s early labors in 


77 Cf. Acts XIX, 21 ...I1 must see Rome also. 
78 Infra, p. 115. ; 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 59 


Rome. His martyrdom there, at a later period, is vouched for 
by a fairly continuous line of references in the documents from 
Clement on. 

Peter’s presence in Rome does not necessarily imply, how- 
ever, that he founded the Roman church, or again that he was 
“bishop.” The one most telling text in favor of regarding Peter 
as the founder of the Roman church is the reference of Paul in 
the fifteenth chapter of Romans (v. 20), when he says that he 
would not “build upon another man’s foundation,” which in 
view of the relations between Peter and Paul has been taken to 
refer to Peter. From the second century on, there was no doubt 
of the matter. 

Yet here we come upon that most tangled of all questions, 
the rise of the episcopate. 

Was Peter both apostle and bishop? Such a position was 
somewhat anomalous. In the apostolic age, there was a “ minis- 
try of the word,” consisting of apostles, prophets, and evangelists, 
whose business it was to go on missionary journeys and to spread 
the gospel (Cf. Acts VI, 1-8). The business affairs and direction 
of the local community were turned over to members of the 
community or residents, the eldest converts (presbyters) and 
the overseers (bishops). Reference has already been made to the 
problems involved in this earliest phase of the constitutional 
history of the Church.” When and how did the structure of 
church administration emerge in solid outline through the fluid 
enthusiasm which found its chief utterance in the itinerant min- 
istry of “apostles and teachers’’? If these questions could be 
answered, we might be able to reach agreement as to Peter’s 
position in Rome. But unfortunately, the questions are them- 
selves unreal, for they seem to presuppose distinctions in the 
minds of the members of those early congregations which could 
hardly have existed, at least in any general way. The powers or 
prerogatives of a growing executive are seldom questioned when 
first exercised under the original impulse which brings them into 
being. It is rather in a second phase of their history that or- 
ganizations become aware of constitutional questions of this kind, 


79 Supra, pp. 3-4. 


60 THE SEE OF PETER 


when criticisms arise upon the part of those who feel that either 
their rights or the welfare of the organization in question suffers 
through the exercise of the debated functions. There are echoes 
of such controversies from the primitive Church, but they are 
not set forth in formal terms of hierarchical theory or juris- 
prudence.*° | 

When one asks, therefore, what was the position of Peter in 
Rome, the answer of the texts and of tradition is open to diverse 
interpretations. On the one hand, his ministry in Rome is held 
to be merely the continuation and completion of his activities as 
‘apostle’; on the other hand, it is interpreted as being that of 
the first of the Roman bishops. According to the later tradi- 
tion, he resided there for a considerable time. ‘This tradition 
grew, most probably, from the connection with the story of 
Simon Magus.** The claim that Peter was bishop of Rome for 
twenty-five years is not found before the Liberian Catalogue in 
354,” and is historically inadmissible, as it can not be reconciled 
with the earlier texts. But however long may have been his 
stay in Rome, one can readily conceive of him as dominating the 
little community while he was there. If we limit ourselves to 
the texts, we do not know what Peter did in Rome nor what 
function he performed. But it is not well to press distinctions 
of office in this early period, and one is safe in imagining that 
Peter played a leading rédle here as elsewhere. It seems, there- 
fore, unnecessary to deny him the title of “ overseer” or epis- 
copus, although Irenaeus himself, in giving the list of the Roman 
bishops,** does not definitely allude to Peter as bishop, possibly 

80 For an account of the itinerant ministry, see the Teaching of the Apostles; 
for the exaltation of the bishop’s position, see The Epistles of Ignatius. 

81 Vide infra, Part III. 

82 This tradition of the twenty-five year episcopate of Peter has been widely 
accepted in Catholic books. The regular tradition was that Peter, having gone to 
Rome to meet Simon Magus in 42 a.p., founded the church there and remained 
until his martyrdom under Nero in 67 av. Lipsius, owing to the large amount 
of falsehood connected with the tradition, rejected the whole of it, and even went 
so far as to deny that Peter was ever in Rome (R. A. Lipsius, Die Quellen der 
romischen Petrus-sage, Kiel, 1872). See the discussion in such thorough, contro- 
versial studies as R. F. Littledale, The Petrine Claims (London, 1889), a Protestant — 
work; C. Guignebert, La Primauté de Pierre (Paris, 1911); and L. Rivington, 
The Primitive Church and the See of Peter (London, 1894), standard Catholic 
statement; or F. U. Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome (London, 
1900); J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. I, Vol. I, pp. 201 seq. 


83 In Haereses, Book I, Chap. XXVII, 1; Book III, Chap. IV, 3. Vide infra, 
p. 268. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 61 


from a sense of the greater glory of the title ‘“‘ apostle.”” He does 
state, however, that Peter “committed to the hands of Linus 
the office of the episcopate.” In 252, Cyprian of Carthage speaks 
of the See of Rome as the See of Peter but not until 354, when 
the tradition was growing old, do we find Peter peetety and 
positively styled the first bishop of Rome.** 

84 Infra, pp. 379, 107. 


PART II 


THE TRADITION ACCEPTED 
AS HISTORICAL 


INTRODUCTION 


We have given already * a short description of the documents 
contained in the present section, the “ accepted ” texts from the 
early Greek and Latin Fathers, which have been ‘from the first 
the usual accredited sources for the belief in Peter’s labors at 
Rome and his death there by crucifixion under Nero. By the 
end of the second century, it was understood that there were 
both an authentic tradition of Peter and a spurious one, the latter 
reaching its full development in literature that was palpably 
apocryphal. Serapion, bishop of Antioch from about 190 to 210, 
wrote in condemnation of a so-called Gospel of Peter: “ For we, 
brethren, accept both Peter and the other apostles as Christ; but, 
being persons of intelligence, we reject the writings falsely as- 
cribed to them, knowing that we have not received such tradi- 
tions.”* A century later, the historian Eusebius distinguished 
between genuine works of the apostles and those “ which we 
know have not been generally accepted among Catholics, because 
no ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern, has made use of 
materials drawn from them.” * These apocryphal legends of the 
apostle have a place and use of their own and are summarized 
in the next section, but they were never, until the fourth century, 
regarded by discriminating scholars as historical and even then 
seem to have received only a partial endorsement. The texts we 
have here, on the other hand, are taken mainly from those whom 
Eusebius calls ‘“ ecclesiastical writers,’ men of authority and 
weight in the early Church, who though not scientific historians 


1 Supra, p. x. 

2 Quoted ee Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 12, 3. 

3 Eusebius, op. cit., III, 3, 2. The epithet, “ ecclesiastical, ’” applied at this 
_ period to a pee means orthodox as distinguished from doubtful or heretical. 


62 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 63 


in the modern sense, did not wilfully or recklessly invent, but 
set down what they soberly believed to be the truth. Among 
them are also a few scraps of contemporary pagan testimony 
which throw some light on the prevalence or character of the 
tradition. 

The tradition which these texts record contains nothing at 
first glance absurd or incredible. It appears to have arisen within 
thirty years, at latest, after Peter’s death, in the region where 
he died. If it is altogether groundless, how explain its unchal- 
lenged circulation at such an early date or the subsequent in- 
variable coupling at Rome of Peter’s name and portrait with 
Paul’s? * It was never, so far as we know, controverted by a 
claim from any other place to be the scene of Peter’s last days, 
even when the other prominent apostles had been in course of 
time definitely consigned to other tombs around the world.’ It 
was the “ received ” tradition, repeated without question by one 
great writer after another throughout those first centuries. 

Not that the tradition, however it first arose, was written 
down clearly at the outset for the benefit of oncoming generations. 
One characteristic of primitive Christian literature is that it ex- 


4 The figures of Peter and Paul appear together in Roman art among the first 
specimens of Christian portraiture, dating from the second and third century. 
W. Lowrie, Christian Art and Archaeology (London, 1901), pp. 251-252; R. A. 
Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome (Boston, 1893), pp. 212-213. 

5 A third century Syrian version of the apocryphal letter of Dionysius the 
Areopagite to Timothy on the deaths of Peter and Paul contains the sentence: 
‘“ Lo, the bodies of the saints are buried at Rome and there is no portion of them 
outside Rome.” Analecta Sacra Patrum Antenicaeanorum, ed. by Martinus, 266; 
.quoted by F. Haase, Apostel und Evangelisten in den orientalischen Uberlieferung- 
.en (Miinster, 1922), p. 213. Save for a few episodes of John’s old age, preserved 
iby Polycarp and repeated by Eusebius, nothing but dubious and hesitating tradi- 
‘tion remains about the later years of any apostle but Peter and Paul. Eusebius 
‘was as much in the dark about them as we are today. Whatever records may 
‘have once existed had obviously been lost to the general knowledge of the Church 
iby his time. Harnack goes so far as to say: “ Probably then it is not too hazard- 
.ous to affirm that the church really had never more than two apostles in the true 
‘sense of the term ... viz. Paul and Peter,— unless perhaps we add John of 
Ephesus.” — A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity (trans. by 
J. Moffatt, 2 vols., 2nd ed., New York, 1908), Vol. I, pp. 351-352. It may be for 
ithis reason that the only two proper names taken from the Old or New Testament 
‘to be borne by gentile Christians during the first three centuries were Paul and 
Peter. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote in the latter half of the third cen- 
tury that “the children of the faithful are often called after Paul and also after 
Peter.” Quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 25, 14. After the middle 
of the Bible became increasingly common. For examples of this see A. Harnack, 
of the fourth century, the custom of naming children after other saints and heroes 
op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 422-430; R. A. Lanciani, op. cit., p. 18, n. 2. 


64 THE SEE OF PETER 

plains and defines so little, that it confidently looks for a speedy 
end of the world, heeds only the immediate emergency, and ad- 
dresses itself to persons who understand the situation as the 
author does and for whom a hint will suffice. The tradition of 
Peter’s death is referred to apparently twice in documents of the 
first century but both times barely in passing, as a thing familiar 
to everyone. The writers are speaking darkly of trials and per- 
secutions still recent and remembering the example of the good 
apostles. It is impossible to guess what lies behind the scanty 
phrases. In the second century, the tradition is still handled as 
fresh and living, and knowledge of it is taken for granted. At 
least, if it has been written down, the record soon afterward 
disappears. We are given, indeed, incidentally another detail 
or two, namely, that Peter as well as Paul preached at Rome 
and established the church and that their monuments are to be 
seen close outside the city walls. The motive for recalling them 
is now to put the seal of authenticity on the doctrines of the 
church which they taught. The contest with heresy has begun 
and the apostles are needed not so much for patterns of martyr- 
dom as for sources of faith. In the third century, comes a more 
conscious effort to formulate and set down reminiscences in order 
to preserve them, but by this time the years have dimmed their 
vividness and many are gone beyond recovery. However, the 
commission to Peter in Matthew is brought forward and Peter 
himself is exalted as first of the apostles. The fourth century 
offers us succinct and formalized biographies, anniversary festi- 
vals, memorial basilicas and tombs of bronze. ‘The tradition, 
amplified and perfected, takes its place and exerts its influence 
thereafter in history. 

The problem which confronts every student of this tradition 
is, of course, how far the completed version, which Jerome, for 
instance, gives us in 392, corresponds to the facts which the 
Church of the first century knew too well to write down. Jerome 


himself, in all probability, could hardly have said how trustworthy 


were the documents on which he depended for his additions to 
Clement’s hazy allusions. As matters stand there will always be 
ground for diversity of opinion. Many Protestant scholars now 


—_ 
ee Oe ee 


en a. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 65 


concede that the “ accepted ” tradition in its oldest and simplest 
form is in all likelihood reliable and that Peter preached and died 
at Rome and, possibly, even chose an overseer, ‘‘ episcopus ” or 
bishop, to assist him or to serve the church after his death, while 
they still doubt how far Catholics are justified in believing that 
' Peter himself was the first bishop and, in any strict sense, the 
founder of the Roman See.® The chronology has always pre- 
sented distracting and seemingly insoluble difficulties. Never- 
theless, such as it is, the tradition here recorded, taken in 
conjunction with the New Testament texts already cited, is the 
foundation upon which the institution of the Papacy rests. 

Without this tradition it is obvious that the New Testament 
texts would possess little more significance for the bishop of Rome 
than for any other member of the Church catholic. The power 
of the keys, the charge to “ feed my sheep,” bestowed by Christ 
upon Peter, would, if Peter’s recorded activity had ceased with 
his canonical epistles, have enhanced in our eyes his personal 
prestige during his lifetime but would have lapsed altogether 
with his death. A grant of rights, conferred by however com- 
petent an authority upon an individual almost two thousand years 
ago, can have no vital import for anyone today, unless the in- 
dividual has left behind him a line of successors who have in- 
herited and continuously exercised those rights down to the 
present time. On the other hand, even without the tradition to 
build upon, the Roman church would still undeniably have be- 
come one of the directing forces of Christendom by virtue of its 
location in the imperial city and the size and character of its 
membership. It would also have been an apostolic church and a 
repository of authentic doctrine, profiting by Paul’s teaching and 
martyrdom and distinguished by his special commendation. But 
the bishop of Rome would have occupied legally no different rank 
from that of the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria, who also 
could boast of apostolic founders. 

To raise him to the unique position of heir in his one person 
to Peter’s peculiar powers there must be a link connecting Peter 
so closely with the Roman bishopric that he, either with or with- 


8 Cf. supra, pp. ix-x, 


66 THE SEE OF PETER 


out Paul, might be considered to have been its originator and to 
have bequeathed to it as its particular legacy the authority which 
his Master had once entrusted to him. The tradition which we 
are about to trace creates this link, taking up the last years of 
Peter, when the New Testament falls silent, and laying the scene 
of them at Rome. It is never, as we have it, more than a meagre 
tradition. It makes no attempt to explain Peter’s own conception 
of his place in the rising Church nor his attitude toward his fol- 
lowers. For any interpretation or application of the Petrine 
powers we must wait for the action of his heirs, the popes, as 
gradually they realize the wider implications of their inheritance. 
But the tradition supplied the essential connection between Peter 
and the Roman See and thereby made it possible to inscribe 
around the central dome of the Vatican cathedral and to chant 
triumphantly in the train of its pontiff: “Tu es Petrus; et super 
hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam.”* “ Thou art Peter; 
and upon this rock I will build my church.” 


1. PETER THE PREACHER AT ROME 


CLEMENT OF ROME 


(c. 96) 

The First Epistle of Clement * to the Corinthians is, perhaps, 
the most famous document of primitive Christianity outside the 
New Testament. It was written probably about 95 or 96 A.D., — 
in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth, 
and contains no sign in itself of the identity of the author. The 
first indication we have that it was composed by Clement is found 
in a letter sent some eighty-five years later by Dionysius, bishop 
of Corinth, to the contemporary bishop of Rome.°® In the early 


7 The wording is, of course, the Latin of the Vulgate. 

8 For the so-called Second Epistle of Clement, vide infra, pp. 251-255. 

® Infra, p. 253. In the early fourth century, Eusebius’ comment on 
I Clement was as follows: “ There is extant one letter of this Clement, which is 
accepted as genuine. It is of great length and remarkable character. He wrote it 
in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth because of a dis- 
turbance that had arisen at Corinth. We know also that this letter has been read 
publicly in many churches in the past and in our own day.” Historia Ecclesiastica, 
ITI, 16. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 67 


lists of Roman bishops, Clement stands second after Linus, who 
is said to have succeeded the apostles.*° Nothing is known of 
Clement’s history, although there has been much speculation as 
to his possible relationship with the Clement whom Paul mentions 
in his letter from Rome to the Philippians ** and with that Titus 
Flavius Clemens of the Roman aristocracy, who with his wife 
Domitilla fell under the displeasure of the emperor Domitian for 
countenancing a strange religion. Perhaps our Clement was a 
freedman of the great Flavian household. His familiarity with 
the ordinances of the Jewish priesthood suggests that he may 
also have been a Hellenistic Jew. The ancient Roman church 
of San Clemente was built over the traditional site of his house, 
between the Caelian and the Esquiline Hills. 

The epistle ascribed to him, a long and dignified appeal to 
the Corinthian church to maintain harmony and order, is, of 
course, of unparalleled value for the study of ecclesiastical de- 
velopment.” Here, however, our business is solely with its sig- 
nificance as the starting point for the Roman tradition of the 
apostle Peter. In the fifth chapter, is a reference to the deaths 
of Peter and Paul, closely connected with an allusion in the next 
chapter to events in the persecution under Nero, which had taken 
place only thirty years before the author wrote. The reference 
is utterly vague. The place and manner of their deaths are not 
specified. More is made of Paul’s life and sufferings than of 
Peter’s. The writer evidently supposed that the Corinthians 
understood all the circumstances and that a bare reminder would 
be enough. The striking thing is that Peter should be named at 
all with Paul, as fellow martyr and example, by the spokesman 
of the Roman community at this early date. 

For full discussion of the Clementine literature and problems, vide J. B. 
Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., London, 1889-1890), Pt. I; also 


W. Wrede, Untersuchungen zum ersten Klemensbriefe (Gottingen, 1891); 
A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., 


10 Infra, pp. 240, 268. 

11 Philippians, IV, 3. 

12 For further extracts, vide infra, pp. 236-239. The first manuscript of this 
epistle to be known to the West in modern times was sent by the Patriarch of 
Constantinople to King Charles I. An English translation was printed in 1633. 
The manuscript, however, was imperfect, lacking Section 5. The whole was 
printed from a better text in 1875. 


68 THE SEE OF PETER 


Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I, pp. 39 sqgqg.; Vol. II, pp. 240 sqq., pp. 438 sqq.; 
V. H. Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents (3 vols., Cambridge 
University Press, 1903-1920), Pt. I; E. Hennecke, Handbuch zu den neu- 
testamentlichen Apokryphen (Tiibingen, 1904); C. H. Turner, Studies in 
Early Church History (Oxford, 1912), pp. 220 sqg.; G. Edmundson, The 
Church in Rome in the First Century (Bampton Lectures for 1913, London, 
1913), Chaps. VII-VIII; E. T. Merrill, Essays in Early Christian History 
(London, 1924), Chap. IX. 


Clement, Ad Corinthios, 5 and 6. Text. The Apostolic 
Fathers, ed. by K. Lake (The Loeb Classical Library), 
I; 16-18, 


5 But to pass from the examples of ancient days, let us 
come to those champions who lived very near to our time. 
Let us set before us the noble examples of our own genera- 
tion. Through envy and malice, the greatest and most 
righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted and con- 
tended even unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good 
apostles. There was Peter, who by reason of unrighteous 
envy endured not one nor two but many trials, and so, 
having borne his testimony,* he passed to his appointed 
place of glory. Amid envy and strife, Paul pointed out the 
way to the prize of patient endurance. After he had been 
seven times in bonds, been driven into exile, been stoned, 
been a herald in the East and the West, he won noble re- 
nown for his faith, for he taught righteousness unto the 
whole world and reached the farthest bounds of the West 
and bore his testimony before the rulers; thus he departed 
from the world and passed unto the holy place, having set 
an illustrious pattern of patient endurance. 

6 Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a vast 
multitude of the elect, who through many indignities and 
tortures endured envy and set a fair example among us. 


18 In Greek waprupjcas, ‘having been a martyr,” that is, a witness. The 
word was not yet confined exclusively to its later Christian meaning of bearing 
testimony unto death. After the first two centuries, the term “ confessor” gradu- 
ally came into use for persons who testified to their faith under trial or persecution 
of any sort and “ martyr” denoted those who sealed their profession by death. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 69 


Through envy women were persecuted as Danaids and 
Dircae, suffering cruel and unholy insults; they steadfastly 
finished the courses of faith and received a noble prize, 
feeble in body though they were.“ 


THE ASCENSION OF [SAIAH 


(Document of 75-100) 


The Ascension of Isaiah is a curious, composite work, thrown 
together by an unknown editor of the second or third century 
with no regard for clarity or chronology in the arrangement of 
the material. The elements of which it is composed are three, 
each originally a distinct document. The first, the Martyrdom 
of Isaiah, is a Jewish legendary history of the sawing asunder 
of the prophet and was written, probably, sometime during the 
first century of our era. The second, the Testament of Hezekiah, 
is an apocalyptic tract of Christian authorship, cast in the guise 
of a vision seen by King Hezekiah during an illness and related 
by him afterward to Isaiah and Josab, Isaiah’s son. Its date 
can be more definitely determined than that of the Martyrdom, 
as somewhere between the years 75 and 100. The writer was 
filled with forebodings over the decline of fervor and purity in 
the Church and the approaching advent of Antichrist or Beliar, 
the spirit of evil, who would assume the form of the dead emperor 
Nero. The belief that Nero was actually still alive and would 
return to wreak vengeance on his disloyal subjects haunted the 
common people of the Empire for years after his death. It was 
natural then for a preacher of doom to conjure up the menace 
of his figure, the one persecutor whom the Church had yet 
‘known, the embodiment of wanton cruelty and impious conceit. 
Antichrist, when he came, would certainly wear his shape, would, 
in fact, be Nero Redivivus, Nero returned to earth.” In one 


14 This passage has always been taken to refer to the persecution under Nero. 
No universally accepted interpretation of the phrase, “ Danaids and Dircae,” has 
ever been given. It may allude to licentious, theatrical performances, in which 
condemned Christian women had been compelled to play a part, or to certain 
famous female criminals, who had previously been put to torture, or the text may 
be corrupt. 

15 Suetonius, writing at the beginning of the second century, mentions the 
fear still widespread in his day that Nero would reappear. Nero, c. 57. As late 


70 THE SEE OF PETER 


place, the author draws a distinction between the believers still 
alive who had seen Christ in the flesh and those who had not, 
a distinction which, of course, became impossible soon after the 
year 100. From the Testament comes the passage which we cite 
and which is probably the oldest extant statement to the effect 
that one of the apostles was executed by Nero. : 

The third document in the compilation, the Vision of Isaiah, 
a rhapsodical description of the seven heavens, the life of the 
blessed, the coming of Christ and the resurrection, was composed 
apparently late in the first century or early in the second. 

No Greek text of the entire Ascension has been preserved. 
A fragment of a later Greek recension has recently been discoy- 
ered and published by Grenfell and Hunt; but our knowledge of 
the work as a whole is based upon a reconstruction from Ethi- 
opic, Slavonic and Latin translations. It played no noticeable 
part in later orthodox church history. The author of the ficti- 
tious Acts of Peter*® and also Origen, Epiphanius and Jerome 
had some knowledge of it but its principal circulation was among 
heretical sects of the third and following centuries. In the 
Middle Ages, it was still read by the Massalides or Bogomils of 
Eastern Europe and the Cathari of the West. But only within 
the last few years have scholars realized its value as the most 
ancient of surviving testimonies as to the manner of Peter’s death. 


Some recent discussions of the Ascension are A. Harnack, Geschichte 
der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), 
Vol. I,? pp. 854-856; Vol. II, pp. 573-579, 714; J. V. Bartlett, The Apostolic 
Age (New York, 1899), pp. 521-524; B. C. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt (editors), 
The Amherst Papyri (2 vols., London, 1900-1901), Vol. I; C. Guignebert, 
La Primauté de Pierre (Paris, 1911); R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and 
Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English (2 vols., Oxford, 1913), 
Vol. II, pp. 155 sqq.; A. L. Davies, Ascension of Isaiah, in J. Hastings, 
Dictionary of the Apostolic Church (2 vols., New York, 1916-1918), Vol. I. 


as the fourth century, Lactantius speaks of a popular superstition that Nero was 
miraculously alive and would return as the forerunner of Antichrist to lay waste 
the earth. De Mortibus Persecutorum, II. In the year 1113, Pope Paschal II 
built a chapel near the Porta Flaminia to overawe the ghost of Nero, which pur- 
sued and terrified belated travellers coming into Rome at night. 

16 Infra, pp. 136-153. Peter, in his apocryphal sermon (infra, p. 144), quotes 
a line from the Ascension. Origen, Epiphanius and Jerome simply refer to it as 
an apocryphal work. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 7I 


Ascensio Jesaiae, IV. Text. The Ascension of Isaiah, ed. 
by R. H. Charles, 24-28. 


IV And now, Hezekiah and Josab my son,” these are 
the days of the consummation of the world; and after it is. 
consummated, Beliar, a great angel, the king of this world, 
will descend. He has ruled it since it began and he will 
descend from his firmament in the form of a man, a king 
without law, the murderer of his mother.” He himself, 
even this king, shall persecute the plant which the twelve 
apostles of the Beloved shall plant and one of the twelve 
shall be delivered into his hands.” ... And all that he 
hath desired he will do in the world; he will do and speak 
like the Beloved and he will say: ‘“‘ I am God and before 
me there has been none.”*’ And all the people in the world 
will believe in him and they will sacrifice to him and serve 
him, saying: “‘ This is God and beside him there is no other.” 
And the greater part of those who have joined together to 
receive the Beloved he will turn aside after him and there 
will be the power of his miracles in every city and region 
and he will set up his image before him in every city.” 


IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH 
(c. 116) 


The letters of Ignatius, second bishop of Antioch, were writ- 
ten during the reign of Trajan, while Ignatius himself was on his 
way under guard to death at Rome, to be ground like “ God’s 
wheat ... by the teeth of wild beasts” in order to become 


17 The preceding five words are probably interpolations of the compiler. The 
whole passage is presumably spoken by Hezekiah to Isaiah and Josab. 

18 An unmistakable description of the emperor Nero. 

19 The reference cannot be to Paul, for he was not at this time included 
among the Twelve. 

20 A reminiscence, probably, of the claim of Caligula to be reckoned as a god. 
Domitian forbade anyone to speak or write of himself under any other title. R. H. 
Charles, op. cit., p. 27, notes. 

21 Statues of the Roman emperors were erected in various cities of the prov- 
inces and divine honors paid to them there. 


72 THE SEE OF PETER 


“the pure bread of Christ.” ** At various stopping places on 
his journey he wrote letters to the churches he was leaving be- 
hind in Asia, exhorting them to steadfastness in the face of perils 
without, and to unity and loyalty to their bishops in view of dis- 
sensions within. He also sent ahead a letter of greeting to the 
Romans, begging them not to attempt intercession nor to bring 
any influence to bear to prevent his martyrdom. We shall give 
other extracts from this letter later to show his idea of the gen- 
erosity to be expected from Roman Christians.** We quote here 
only the three short sentences in which he compares his own 
admonitions to the Romans to the commandments given them by 
the apostles Peter and Paul. Whether he has in mind oral com- 
mandments, delivered in person, or whether he is thinking merely 
of the hortatory epistles sent by these same apostles to the 
churches, no one can be quite sure. 


On Ignatius, vide J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., Lon- 
don, 1889-1890), Pt. II, Vol. II; A. Harnack, Geschichte der alichristlichen 
Litteratur bis Eusebius (Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I,1 pp. 75 sqq., Vol. II,? 
pp. 381 sqg.; A. Harnack, Entstehung und Entwickelung der Kirchenverfas- 
sung und des Kirchenrechts in den zwei ersten Jahrhunderten (Leipzig, 1910) ; 
P. Batiffol, in J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church (2 vols., New 
York, 1916-1918), Vol. I, pp. 504 sqgq.; S. Dunin-Borkowski, Die Anfange 
des Episkopats (Freiburg, 1901); R. Knopf, Nachapostolische Zeitalter 
(Tiibingen, 1905); A. Lelong, Zgnace d’Antioche et Polycarpe de Smyrne 
(Paris, 1910). 


Ad Romanos, 4. Text. Apostolic Fathers, ed. by K. Lake 
(Loeb Classical Library), I, 230. 


I do not command you as Peter and Paul did. They 
were apostles; I am a convict. They were free; I am a 
slave to this very hour.” 


22 Eusebius has an account of Ignatius. Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 36, 31. 

23 Infra, pp. 241-242. 

24 H. Grisar, History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages (trans. by 
L. Cappadelta, 3 vols., London, 1911-1912), Vol. I, p. 283, remarks on this: “In 
these words he assumes it to be well known to his hearers that Peter and Paul had 
preached in person to the faithful at Rome. ... It is evident that great historical 
weight must be attached to such remarks, when the writer so readily assumes a 
universal belief in the fact that he is at no pains to enforce it or even express it 
at all clearly.” 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 73 


PHLEGON 
(Reign of Hadrian, 117-138) 

The following excerpt, derived from the writings of Origen,” 
is trivial enough at first sight but grows in interest as one begins 
to grasp its implications. Phlegon was a favorite freedman of 
the emperor Hadrian and the reputed author of historical and 
other works, most of which have long been lost. Spartianus, who 
a century and a half later compiled the most valuable life of 
Hadrian that we have, says that Hadrian himself actually wrote 
many of the books which passed as Phlegon’s and that he pre- 
ferred to publish under his freedman’s name rather than under 
his own.** It is therefore possible that the Chronicles mentioned 
in our quotation were composed by the emperor. In any case, 
the author, a member of the Roman imperial court, knew some 
facts or reports about Peter as well as about Christ and found 
it easy to confuse Peter with the founder of Christianity. 


Origen, Conira Celsum, II,14. Text. Origenes Werke (Die 
griechischen christlichen Schrifisteller der ersten dret 
Jahrhunderte), I, 143-144. 


Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I 
think, of his Chronicles, ascribed to Christ a power to fore- 
tell future events, confusing some incidents which are related 
of Peter with those related of Jesus. And he testified that 
the results accorded with Christ’s predictions. 


PAPIAS OF HIERAPOLIS 
Cie gery, 


Papias, like Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, be- 
longed to the group which we now call the Apostolic Fathers, 


25 On Origen, vide infra, pp. 87, 316. 

26 Spartianus, Vita Hadriani, 16, 1. Quoted by A. C. McGiffert, Translation 
of Eusebius, Church History, Il, p. 129, n. 7, in A Select Library of Nicene and 
Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (14 vols., New York, 1890-1903), 
Second Series, Vol. I. 


74 THE SEE OF PETER 


men who in their youth had come into contact with one or more 
of the original apostles. He was a citizen of Hierapolis, a city 
in Phrygia which claimed to possess the sepulchre of Philip the 
apostle.*” Papias himself is said to have spoken with Philip’s 
daughters and with a mysterious “ John, the presbyter,’ whom 
he regarded as high authority. From them and other sources he 
collected various traditions which threw light on the meaning of 
the teachings of Christ and the apostles and which he recorded 
in a book called Interpretations of the Lord’s Sayings. ‘The 
book has long since disappeared, but a few references were made 
to it or quotations taken from it by Greek writers of the first 
three or four centuries, such as Irenaeus and Eusebius. 

From Papias comes indirectly in this way the oldest extant 
account of the composition of the gospel of Mark. Unfortu- 
hately Eusebius does not give us Papias’ own words, preferring 
in this instance to quote the version of a later man, Clement of 
Alexandria, and using Papias’ name merely to confirm Clement’s 
story. The text, therefore, with Eusebius’ comment is given 
under Clement.** Here, however, we mark the fact that the 
story itself is traced back to Papias, together with the view it 
gives of Peter’s activity at Rome. Taken along with Ignatius’ 
allusion to Peter, cited above, it seems to show that at the 
opening of the second century, Peter was connected with the 
community at Rome in the minds of prominent Christians of 
Asia Minor.” | 


An account of Papias with every recoverable fragment of his book is in 
J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., London, 1889-1890). See 
also the article on Papias in W. Smith and H. Wace, Dictionary of Christian 
Biography (4 vols., Boston, 1877-1887), Vol. IV; and in J. J. Herzog and 
H. Hauck, Realencyklopadie fiir protestantische Theologie und Kirche (24 
vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. XIV; B. W. Bacon, /s Mark a Roman 
Gospel? (Harvard University Press, 1919); F. J. F. Jackson and K. Lake, 
The Beginnings of Christianity (2 vols., London, 1920-1922), Vol. I, pp. 
316-317; B. J. Kidd, A History of the Christian Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols., 
Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. I, pp. 186-1809. 


27 Infra, p. 281 and n. 104. 

28 Infra, p. 80. 

29 This much may certainly be said, whether one does or does not accept the 
theory of the Petrine or Roman authorship of the Gospel of Mark. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 75 


DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH 


(C190) 


Dionysius, bishop of the church in the busy seaport of Corinth 
and a contemporary of Soter, bishop of Rome, wrote letters to 
various churches in Greece, Asia Minor and Crete, which were 
later assembled in a collection read by Eusebius in the early 
fourth century.*° He wrote also a letter to the Roman commu- 
nity in acknowledgment of a letter which had been previously 
sent him by Bishop Soter. Eusebius, in his Church History, has 
quoted four short passages from this letter to the Romans.** In 
one, Dionysius recalls the letter sent by Clement to the Corin- 
thians seventy-five years before; in another, he makes the earliest 
statement we possess to the effect that Peter and Paul actually 
founded the Roman church. 

This is also the earliest text to imply that Peter and Paul met 
their deaths on the same day, although the Greek wording is per- 
haps too vague to be much insisted upon. Somewhat later, how- 
ever, the Roman church is to be found celebrating their martyr- 
doms or depositions together.*? At the beginning of the fifth 
century, Prudentius and Augustine tried to solve the chronological 
difficulty involved by advancing the theory that the apostles died 
on the same day of the month but in different years,** but the 
Index attributed to Pope Gelasius condemned as heretical any 
suggestion that they did not die at the same time.** Since then 
until recent times, the prevailing tendency in church history as 
in legend has been to unite their deaths.*° Nevertheless it is now 
usually recognized as impossible to adjust the chronology to fit 
such a hypothesis. It seems more likely that the Roman church 


30 On Eusebius vide infra, pp. 96-102. 

31 For two more of these extracts vide infra, pp. 252-253. 

82 Infra, p. 108. 

33 Augustine, Sermones, 205, 381, “ On the anniversary of the apostles Peter 
and Paul.” Prudentius, Peristephanon, XII. Infra, p. 118. 

34 The so-called decretal, De Recipiendis et Non Recipiendis Libris, II. 

35 The Breviarium Romanum, in the order for vespers on June 29, contains 
the following chant: “Today Simon Peter mounted the gibbet of the cross, 
alleluia; today the keybearer of the kingdom passed rejoicing to Christ; today 
the apostle Paul, the light of the world, bowed his head and for the name of Christ 
was crowned with martyrdom, alleluia.” 


76 THE SEE OF PETER 


fixed originally upon the single date because of a simultaneous 
translation of the two bodies sometime during the first few 
centuries.*° 

On Dionysius of Corinth, vide A. Harnack, Geschichte der alichristlichen 
Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I,1 pp. 235 sqq.; 
G. Krueger, History of Early Christian Literature (trans. by C. R. Gillett, 
New York, 1897), p. 55. On the anniversary of Peter and Paul wide 
C. Erbes, Die Todestage der Apostel Paulus und Petrus und ihre romischen 
Denkmdler in O, Gebhardt, A. Harnack, C. Schmidt (editors), Texte und 
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig, 1882), 
New Series, Vol. IV. 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 25. Text. Eusebius 
Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrifisteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 178. 


And Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, in the letter he 
wrote to the Romans, stated in the following words that they 
| Peter and Paul] both suffered martyrdom at the same time. 
“You have thus by this admonition bound together the 
plantings of Peter and Paul at Rome and at Corinth. For 
they both alike planted in our Corinth and taught us ** and 
both alike taught togeitEye in Italy and suffered TanEyEOGts 
at the same time.”’ 


IRENAEUS OF ASIA AND GAUL 
(c. 130-C. 200) 


Irenaeus, a native of Asia Minor, who in later life came west 
to settle in Lyons on the Rhone, was among the first to employ 
the traditions of the apostles in the churches, in particular the 
Roman traditions of Peter and Paul, as a systematic defense 
against innovations of doctrine and heresies. By the middle of 
the second century, there were springing up various mystical or 


36 Infra, p. 106. 

87 Chapter XI of Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians contains allusions 
to another apostle who had been visiting the church at Corinth and preaching a 
somewhat different form of gospel. Compare also the First Epistle to the Cor- 
inthians, III, 22, and IX, 5, ’ 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 77 


speculative sects, such as the Montanists,** who claimed to be 
the direct recipients of fresh revelations, and the Gnostics,®? who 
asserted that they had passed in deeper knowledge beyond the 
slow-witted, uncomprehending disciples of Jesus. Irenaeus and 
others like him turned for reassurance to the churches who could 
be trusted to teach and interpret the Scriptures as the apostles 
had done. Preéminent among them was the church of Rome 
with its unbroken records and its twofold apostolic tradition. 

Irenaeus’ writings had a momentous effect upon the develop- 
ment of ecclesiastical polity and the rise of the papal office. We 
give fuller extracts from them later.*** Here we quote but two 
sentences to illustrate his conception of the origin of the Roman 
episcopate. 


Trenaeus is in many respects the most important Christian writer of the 
second century, after Ignatius, whose work has come down to us. He is dis- 
cussed in every history of the Church or of dogma. A recent biography is 
that of F. R. M. Hitchcock, Jrenaeus of Lugdunum (Cambridge University 
Press, 1914). A translation of his chief book, Against Heresies, was pub- 
lished in 1916 by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. 


38 The Montanists were a puritanical sect of Phrygian origin that protested 
against the growing formalism in the Church. Like the Brethren of the Free Spirit 
or the Quakers of later days, they affirmed the right of every believer to be a 
priest for himself and follow his own light, and the necessity of a more austere 
moral discipline. On this heresy, vide A. Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des 
Urchristenthums (Leipzig, 1884); J. De Soyres, Montanism and the Primitive 
Church (London), 1878; N. Bonwetsch, Montanismus in J. J. Herzog and A. 
Hauck, Realencyklopddie fiir protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Vol. XIII; 
H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History to A.D. 313 (2 vols., London, 1912), Vol. 
IJ, chap. XVI; J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 106-100. 

39 Gnosticism is a name commonly applied to a fluctuating series of dualistic 
and syncretistic systems of philosophy, deriving their origin from Persian and 
Babylonian sources but assimilating features of Greek philosophy and finally of 
Christianity as they spread into the West. In its early forms, Gnosticism antedates 
Christianity. In its later shapes, it vexed and divided the Church for several cen- 
turies, although its influence gradually waned after the second. In the fourth, its 
place was taken by Manicheanism. Some Christian Gnostics taught that the God 
of the Old Testament, the Creator of the material world, was cruel even when he 
seemed to be just, that Jesus was an emanation from another and spiritual God, 
that he appeared to be born and die but in reality was subject to no fleshly limi- 
tations, and that he had ascended into heaven without feeling pain or death. 
Hence came the answering orthodox insistence upon God the Father as also the 
Creator and upon the reality of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ. A. Har- 
nack, History of Dogma (trans. by N. Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 1897-1901), 
Vol. I, pp. 222 sqq.; E. de Faye, Introduction a l’Etude de Gnosticisme (Paris, 
1903); W. Bousset, Gnosticism, in Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed., 29 vols., 
London, 1910-1911), Vol. XII; H. M. Gwatkin, op. cit., Vol. II, chap. XVI; 
W. Schiiltz, Dokumente der Gnosis (Jena, 1910); J. C. Ayer, op. cit., pp. 76-106. 

89a Infra, pp. 265-272. 


78 THE SEE OF PETER 


Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, III, 1, 3. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, VII, 844, 849. 


So Matthew among the Hebrews issued a gospel written 
in their tongue, while Peter and Paul were preaching at 
Rome and establishing the church. ... The blessed 
apostles then founded and reared up this church and after- 
wards committed unto Linus the office of the episcopate. 


CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 


(fl. 190-2 15) 


Clement of Alexandria, for years the light of the Christian 
training school in Alexandria, had been before his conversion an 
earnest student of Greek literature and philosophy; in after life, 
instead of deriding and repudiating pagan learning, as the first 
apologists had done, he aimed to bring it into a harmonious re- 
lation with his new faith. Hence his chief contribution to the 
development of Christian thought was a conception of Chris- 
tianity itself as a revelation of philosophy made perfect and of 
the older discipline as “‘a schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic 
mind to Christ, as the law was to bring the Hebrews.” *° 

His greatest works were an introduction to Christianity, en- 
titled Protrepticus, addressed to Greeks; an account of Christian 
life and ethics, called Paedagogus; and a collection of miscella- 
neous chapters on true faith as the highest manifestation of phi- 
losophy, which he named Stromata, Tapestries. He wrote also 
an important commentary on the Scriptures, known as the Hy- 
potyposes, of which only a few fragments, preserved in other 
men’s writings, have come down to us. 

The peculiar interest of Clement for us here lies in the fact 
that he made a point of visiting and talking with the survivors 
of a more primitive Christian generation than his own and of 
recording the information and ideas which he gathered from 
these older sources. The introductory paragraph of his Stromata 


40 Stromata, I, 5. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 79 


runs as follows:** “ This handbook is not a composition fabri- 
cated artistically for display, but notes preserved for my old age 
as a remedy for forgetfulness, a bald outline and memorandum 
of those powerful and glowing words which I was privileged to 
hear, as well as of those blessed and extraordinary men. Of 
these men one, an Ionian, was in Greece and two in Magna 
Graecia,*” one of whom had come from Coele-Syria ** and the 
other from Egypt. There were others in the East, one of them 
an Assyrian, another a Hebrew in Palestine. But when I dis- 
covered the last, — although in might he was truly first, — and 
hunted him out, that Sicilian bee, in his lurking place in Egypt, 
I found rest. These men, who guard the true tradition of the 
blessed doctrine, received directly from the holy apostles, Peter 
and James and John and Paul, the son having heard it from the 
father, — yet few were like the fathers, have by God’s will 
continued even unto us to plant in us those inherited and apos- 
tolic seeds.” 

Through Clement, therefore, we catch a few last, disappear- 
ing echoes of the age that followed upon the apostolic and that 
knew the sons of the apostles’ disciples. His anecdotes of the 
apostles have at times the flavor of personal recollections, handed 
down from actual eyewitnesses. But he never says where he 
heard any specific story and without such definite corroboration 
it is impossible to be sure how far he is in any given instance 
repeating from floating hearsay or legend and how far from 
direct, reliable tradition. Eusebius tells us that one of the epi- 
sodes he quotes from Clement, which we give below, was con- 
firmed by Papias.** But Clement alone leaves one usually a 
little uncertain. 


On Clement, vide O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (St. Louis, 1908), § 38; 
A. Harnack, History of Dogma (trans. by N. Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 
1897-1901), Vol. II, pp. 319-332; A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen 
Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I,1 pp. 296-327; 
V. Pascal, La Foi et la Raison dans Clement d’Alexandrie (Montdidier, 1901); 


41 Stromata, I, 1. Quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 11, 3-5. 

42 Southern Italy. 

43 Coele-Syria was the name given to the valley lying between the eastern and 
the western ranges of the Lebanon mountains. 

44 For Papias vide supra, p. 73. 


80 THE SEE OF PETER 


W. Wagner, Der Christ und die Welt nach Clemens von Alexandrien (Got- 
tingen, 1903); R. B. Tollinton, Clement of Alexandria, A Study m Christian 
Liberalism (2 vols., London, 1914); H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History 
to A.D. 313 (2 vols., London, 1912), Vol. II, chap. XIX. 


Clement of Alexandria, Hypotyposes, quoted by Eusebius, 
Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 15. Text. Eusebius Werke 
(Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten 
drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 140. 


And so brightly did the splendor of piety illumine the 
minds of Peter’s hearers [at Rome] that they were not 
satisfied with one audience only nor with the unwritten 
teaching of the divine gospel, but with all manner of 
urgency they besought Mark, a follower of Peter and the 
one whose gospel is extant, that he would leave to them a 
written record of the doctrine which had been communicated 
to them by word of mouth. Nor did they cease until they 
had prevailed with him and had thus become the instigators 
of the written gospel which is called “‘ according to Mark.” 
And they say that when Peter learned through a revelation 
of the Spirit of that which had been done, he was pleased 
with their zeal and sanctioned the book for use in the 
churches. Clement gives this account in the eighth book 
of his Hypotyposes and the bishop of Hierapolis, named 
Papias, agrees with him. And they say that Peter makes 
mention of Mark in his first epistle, which, they say, he 
wrote also in Rome, as he indicates when he calls the city 
figuratively Babylon, in the following words: “ The church 
that is at Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth you, and 
so doth Mark, my son.” “* This Mark, they say, was the 
first sent to Egypt, and he preached the gospel which he 
had written down and founded the first church in Alexandria 
itself.* 


45 x Peter V, 13. 
46 This is the traditional origin of the see of Alexandria, which in time ranked 
with the Petrine sees of Rome and Antioch. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 81 


Hypotyposes, quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 
VI, 14. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christ- 
lichen Schriftsteller der ersten dret Jahrhunderte), II’, 


550. 


Again in the same book [| Hypotyposes| Clement records 
the tradition of the ancient presbyters regarding the order 
of the gospels, which is as follows. He says that the gospels 
which contain the genealogies “* were written first. The 
gospel according to Mark had the following origin. When 
Peter was preaching the word publicly at Rome and pro- 
claiming the gospel in the Spirit, his hearers, who were many, 
urged upon Mark, who had long been his follower and re- 
membered his sayings, to write them down. And Mark did 
so and gave his gospel to those who had asked for it. When 
Peter learned of it, he neither directly forbade nor encour- 
aged it. 


Stromaia, III, 6; VII, 11, quoted in Eusebius’ Historia Ec- 
clesiastica, III, 30. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die grie- 
chischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten dret Jahr- 
hunderte), II’, 262, and Clemens Alexandrinus (same 
series), II, 220; III, 46. 


Clement,** indeed, whose words we have just quoted, 
after this statement gives an account of the apostles who 
had wives, aimed against those persons who rejected mar- 
riage. “Or will they,” says he, ‘‘ disapprove even of the 
apostles? For Peter and Philip * begat children; and Philip 
also gave his daughters husbands. And Paul does not hesi- 
tate, in one of his epistles, to greet his wife, whom he did 
not take about with him, that he might not be impeded in 

47 J.e., of course, Matthew and Luke. 

48 Clement has been arguing against the extreme asceticism advocated and 
practised by many ardent believers of his day. 


49 Matthew VIII, 14; Acts XXI, 8, 9. For the legend of Peter’s daughter, 
Petronilla, vide infra, p. 198. ; 


82 THE SEE OF PETER 


his ministry.” °° Since we have broached this subject, it 


does no harm to include another anecdote which is given 
by the same author and which is worth reading. In the 
seventh book of his Stromata, he tells the following inci- 
dent:™ “‘ They say, accordingly, that when the blessed Peter 
saw his own wife led out to die, he rejoiced because of her 
summons and her return home, and called to her very en- 
couragingly and comfortingly, addressing her by name, ‘ Oh 
thou, remember the Lord.’ Such was the marriage of the 
blessed, and their perfect disposition toward those dearest 
to them.” 


2. PETER THE ROMAN MARTYR 


Carus OF ROME 
(fl. 199-217) 


The next clear allusions to Peter’s presence at Rome come 
from Rome itself in the shape of traditions as to the circum- 
stances of his death or burial. The author of our first quotation 
is one Caius, a person of whom we know nothing certain except 
what Eusebius tells us a century later, namely, that he was “a 
very learned man,” a member of the church under Bishop 
Zephyrinus (c. 199-217) and that he wrote at Rome a polemic in 
the form of a dialogue against Proclus, a leader of the Montanist 
faction.” Eusebius cites passages from this dialogue on more 
than one occasion.** In the extract below, Caius is apparently 
maintaining the superior authority of orthodox Roman doctrine 
over Montanist teaching on the ground that the Roman church 
was the direct creation of the apostles and is still the repository 
of their bones. He is elaborating the argument already forged 
by Irenaeus, which was to prove a potent weapon against all 
manner of change and dissent. 


50 + Cor. IX, 5. However, the words do not prove conclusively that Paul 
- was married, and 1 Cor. VII, 7, 8, seems to imply as clearly that he was not. 
Clement is the only one of the early Fathers to say that he was and others deny it. 

51 There is no other authority for this tradition. 

52 On the Montanists, vide supra, p. 77, n. 38. 

53 Historia Ecclesiastica, V1, 20, 3; III, 28, 1-2. 

54 Supra, p. 76. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 83 


On Caius, and the tombs of Peter and Paul, vide A. Harnack, Geschichte 
der alichristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), 
Vol. I?, p. 601; A. Harnack in J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopddie 
fiir protestantische Theologie und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), 
Vol. III, p. 638: Listerer, Die Apostelgraber nach Gaius, in Theologische 
Quartalschrift (Tiibingen, 1892), pp. 121-132; C. Erbes, Die Todestage der 
Apostel Petrus and Paulus und ihre romischen Denkmdaler, in O. Gebhardt, 
A. Harnack, C. Schmidt (editors), Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte 
der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig, 1882—), New Series, Vol. IV; H. Leitz- 
mann, Petrus und Paulus in Rom; Liturgische und archdologische Studien 
(Bonn, 1915), pp. 155 sqq.; F. Haase, Apostel und Evangelisten in den 
orientalischen Uberlieferungen (Miinster, 1922), pp. 211-213. 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 25. Text. Eusebius 
Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 176-178. 


Moreover, it is said that Paul was beheaded in Rome 
and that Peter also was crucified under Nero. And this re- 
port is confirmed by the fact that the names of Peter and 
Paul are preserved in the cemeteries there to this day. It 
is further confirmed by a member of the church, Caius by 
name, who lived under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome. In an 
argument that he wrote against Proclus, the leader of the 
Phrygian heresy,’ he speaks as follows of the places where 
the sacred bodies of the aforesaid apostles are laid. ‘‘ But 
I can show you the trophies” of the apostles. For if 
you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will 
find the trophies of those who laid the foundation of this 
church.” 


55 Montanus, the first prophet of the Montanist movement, was a Phrygian. 

56 The Greek word spézaa, trophies, is vague. To erect a trophy was 
customarily to mark a victory and some scholars have thought that the “ trophies ” 
mentioned here were stones that marked the sites of the apostles’ martyrdom. 
Others have interpreted the word as meaning tombs, containing the apostles’ bodies. 
In either case, these monuments must have been in Caius’ day comparatively small 
and inconspicuous, for Rome was still a pagan city. The tradition that Peter was 
crucified on the slope of the Janiculum, on the spot now covered by the buildings 
of the church of San Pietro in Montorio, and that his body was carried down to 
the Vatican lowland for burial is late and based upon an error. R. A. Lanciani, 
Pagan and Christian Rome (Boston, 1893), pp. 126-128. 


84 THE SEE OF PETER 


TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE 


(c. 160-c. 235) 


Tertullian, the most thorough-going theologian of the Latin 
West before Augustine *’ and, unlike Clement of Alexandria, the 
uncompromising foe of all Greek philosophy, was a younger con- 
temporary of Clement and of Caius of Rome. He was born at 
Carthage, where his father was serving a term of office as cen- 
turion, and he returned to Africa to spend the latter part of his 
life, but for some years in his early manhood he led the career 
of a lawyer and rhetorician at Rome. At about thirty-five years 
of age, he was converted to Christianity and flung himself there- 
after with impetuous ardor into religious pursuits, renouncing 
scornfully his previous profane interests. Whether or not he 
was ordained a priest, as Jerome says,” he became a man of in- 
fluence and distinction in the Christian community, until about 
202, when he joined the Montanists, a group peculiarly likely to 
attract one of his fiery temperament.” He died, therefore, under 
the odium of heresy. He wrote many books on religious subjects, 
some in defense of Christian doctrine against pagan philosophers, 
Jews and heretics of the Gnostic stamp,® for whom he had no 
sympathy, others on various phases of Christian life and practice, 
a few, after 207, in contemptuous denunciation of the orthodox 
Roman church for what seemed to him then its degenerate 
morality and discipline. } 

One of his most important dogmatic Roper written while he 
was still a Catholic, was The Prescription of Heretics.” In it, 
he enlarged upon the theory enunciated by Irenaeus,” that only 
churches founded by the apostles or by bishops whom the 


57 Tertullian’s Apology was one of the few early Latin, Christian writings 
thought worthy of translation into Greek. Cyprian’s correspondence shared the 
distinction. 

58 De Viris Illustribus, LVI. Jerome wrote this about 390. 

59 On the Montanists, vide supra, p. 77, n. 38. 

60 On the Gnostics, vide supra, p. 77, N. 39. 

61 “ Praescriptio ” under the Roman law was a ferm of defense which might 
be employed in civil cases involving claims to real estate. It was based upon the 
length of the defendant’s occupation of the land under dispute. If admitted by 
the judge, it excluded the plaintiff at once from any further proceedings. 

62 Supra, p. 76; infra, p. 261. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 85 


apostles had appointed could claim to transmit the true, un- 
alloyed doctrine without flaws and that all heresy, being a nov- 
elty, was for that reason false. The first passage here quoted is 
a portion of this argument. Tertullian is dwelling particularly 
on the authoritative character of the Roman church, which had 
received the witness not of one apostle only, but of two or even 
three, and which possessed a record of the ordination of Bishop 
Clement by Peter.** Another example of this same argument is 
in the excerpt from the treatise against the Gnostic Marcion.™* 

The Scorpiace or Antidote against Scorpions was an indig- 
nant vindication of the value and meritoriousness of Christian 
martyrdom as against the suggestion of certain Gnostics, that 
even the most holy martyrs were merely expiating sins com- 
mitted in a previous state of existence and did not deserve the 
honors paid them by the Church. It held up Peter as a pattern 
of suffering and spiritual power.®*’ A short essay on Baptism 
refuted objections to the orthodox doctrine of that sacrament 
and mentioned by way of illustration Peter’s baptisms in the 
Tiber. From the sum of these scattered references it is plain 
that Tertullian accepted as unquestioned the belief that Peter 
had both preached and endured death by crucifixion at Rome *° 
and had selected a bishop to succeed him. The allusions are 
brief and cursory, but slightly more definite than those we have 


63 About this time, appears the tendency in the more popular writers to crowd 
out Linus and Cletus, who were named by Irenaeus (infra, p. 268) as the suc- 
cessors of Peter and Paul, in favor of the better known Clement and to make the 
latter the recipient of Peter’s final charge and blessing. The more accurate his- 
torians, as will be noticed, keep Linus and Cletus in their places, although some, 
like Rufinus (infra, p. 162), attempt later to compromise with the legend by 
calling these two the assistants or coadjutors of Peter during his lifetime and 
Clement his successor after his death. Such a compromise became easier as the 
term of Peter’s residence at Rome was gradually lengthened. The “ register” 
mentioned here by Tertullian must have contained apocryphal material. An 
elaborate invention of the sort was the so-called Letter of Clement to the Apostle 
James, from which we quote. Infra, pp. 163-165. 

64 On Marcion, vide infra, pp. 258, 259, 266, n. 65, 270, 272. 

65 For a quotation from the Scorpiace and a fuller discussion of its bearing, 
vide infra, pp. 286-288, 205. 

66 Lengthy accounts of Peter’s crucifixion were by this time coming into cir- 
culation in the apocryphal Acts. Whether the mode of his execution was originally 
an apocryphal invention, adopted by the author of John XXI, 18, and after him 
by Tertullian and Origen, who first among “ ecclesiastical writers” refer to it, or 
whether the authors of the earlier apocryphal literature and of the passage in John, 
as well as Tertullian and Origen, all took it independently from some trustworthy 
source or tradition now lost, it is impossible to decide positively. Vide mfra, 
Pp. 151-152, 177. 


86 THE SEE OF PETER 


found in the older writers. They still deal apparently with 
facts which every reader was expected to know and no one 
doubted and which, therefore, it was unnecessary to reénforce 
by proofs. 


On Tertullian, vide E. Noldechen, Tertullian (Gotha, 1890); P. Mon- 
ceaux, Histoire Litteraire de l Afrique Chrétienne (7 vols., Paris, 1901-1923), 
Vol. I; A. Harnack, History of Dogma (trans. by N. Buchanan, 7 vols., 
Boston, 1897-1901), Vol. V, pp. 14-23; E. Rolffs, Das Indulgenz-Edict des 
romischen Bischofs Kallist, in O. Gebhardt, A. Harnack, C. Schmidt (edi- 
tors), Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der alichristlichen Literatur 
(Leipzig, 1882—), Vol. XI; J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., 
London, 1889-1890), Pt. II; T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the 
Early Roman Empire (London, 3rd ed., 1909), Chap. X; N. Bonwetsch in 
J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopadie fir protestantische Theologie 
und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. XIX, pp. 537 sqq.; H. M. 
Gwatkin, Early Church History to A.D. 313 (2 vols., London, 1912), Vol. II, 
Chap. XXII. 


De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 32, 36. Text. Ed. by P. 
de Labriolle (Textes et Documents pour VEiude His- 
torique du Christianisme ) IV, 68, 78 sqq. 


32... For in this form [i.e., episcopal lists] the apos- 
tolic churches present their registers, such as the church of 
Smyrna, which shows that Polycarp was appointed thereto 
by John, and the church of Rome, which states that Clement 
was ordained by Peter. . . . 

36 Come then, you who would better exercise your wits 
about the business of your own salvation, recall the various 
apostolic churches, in which the actual chairs of the apostles 
are still standing in their places, in which their own authentic 
letters are read, repeating the voice and calling up the face 
of each of them severally. Achaea is very near you, where 
you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you 
have Philippi.” If you can travel into Asia, you have 
Ephesus. But if you are near Italy, you have Rome, whence 


67 Some texts add: “ You have the Thessalonians” 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 87 


also our authority is derived close at hand.” How happy 
is that church on which the apostles poured forth all their 
teaching together with their blood! Where Peter endured 
a passion like his Lord’s! Where Paul won his crown in a 
death like John’s! ® 


Adversus Marctonem, IV, 5. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, XLVII, 430. 


Let us see what milk the Corinthians drank from Paul, 
by what rule of faith the Galatians were corrected, what the 
Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians *° are repeat- 
ing, what also is the utterance of the Romans, who stand so 
very near |to the apostles], to whom both Peter and Paul 
bequeathed the gospel and sealed it further with their own 
blood. We have besides John’s foster churches. 


De Baptismo, 4. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum, XX, 204. 


Therefore it does not matter whether one is washed in 
the sea or in a pool, in a river or in a fountain, in a lake or 
in a tank, nor is there any difference between those whom 
John baptised in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptised 
in the Tiber. 


ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA 


(c. 185-c. 254) 


Origen, the most powerful intellect in all that group of church 
Fathers who were living when the second century passed into the 


68 The church of Carthage was founded perhaps by missionaries from Italy. 
Its nearest apostolic connection was certainly at Rome and it seems to have looked 
to Rome in the beginning as its model. : 

69 T.e., John the Baptist, who was beheaded. This passage is given again in 
its full context, infra, pp. 288-295. 

70 These are all churches to which Paul wrote epistles. 


88 THE SEE OF PETER 


third, was in boyhood a pupil of Clement of Alexandria ” in the 
famous Christian school in that city. In 202, when Clement fled 
before the persecution of Septimius Severus, the bishop Deme- 
trius chose out Origen, then only eighteen years of age, to succeed 
Clement as headmaster. He remained at his post with few inter- 
ruptions for twenty-eight years, lecturing and composing a vast 
number of works on every aspect of religious thought. It is said 
that seven amanuenses were kept busy taking down his dictation, 
and the defective catalogue of his books that still survives con- 
tains eight hundred titles. 

He developed further the characteristic idea of Clement that 
Christianity was a form of revealed philosophy and built up a 
comprehensive Christian philosophic system, which he supported 
by an exhaustive use of both pagan and Christian literature. 
The fullest exposition of this system is contained in his De 
Principtis, which has come down in a free Latin translation by 
Rufinus.” He originated the science of Biblical, textual criti- 
cism in an immense undertaking known as the Hexafla, a colla- 
tion in parallel columns of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament 
with the Greek of the Septuagint and three other Greek versions. 
His purpose in the enterprise was to defend rather than to cor- 
rect the text of the Septuagint, which he regarded as a work of 
inspiration as much as its Hebrew prototype, but the method 
which he devised has been utilized ever since by scholars for 
purposes of pure criticism. He compiled an elaborate and inter- 
minable series of notes and commentaries upon the Scriptures, 
searching everywhere to detect and explain not the literal or 
temporary meaning, but the deep, hidden or spiritual meaning, 
ignoring almost entirely the plain, historical significance, and in 
this way promoting a method of Biblical exegesis as tortuous and 
mystifying as his method of textual criticism was clear and 
exact.” | 

Unfortunately, in his desire to state religion in terms of phi- 
losophy and thus win over the educated circles of his day, he 


71 On Clement, vide supra, p. 78. 

72 On Rufinus, vide infra, p. 160. 

73 A quotation illustrating Origen’s use of allegory and symbolism may be 
found, infra, pp. 317-322. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 89 


gave philosophical conceptions so prominent a place in his work 
that the Church began to be suspicious of it. In 231 and 232, 
synods were called at Alexandria which deposed him from his 
office as headmaster and expelled him from the city for heterodox 
teaching and irregular ordination to the priesthood. The sen- 
tence was approved by a synod held at Rome about the same 
time.’* After vainly endeavoring to obtain reinstatement, he 
moved to Caesarea and opened a school of theology there, which 
soon drew many pupils. For nearly twenty years more, he con- 
tinued to lecture, preach and write, until the outbreak of the 
bitter persecution under Decius in 250-251. He was then seized, 
thrown into prison and tortured. In 254 or 255, he died, whether 
still in prison or not we do not know. 

The storms of controversy, however, that were to rage apatind 
his name only began in his lifetime. His books were too com- 
pelling and too extraordinary to be left alone. They were read 
everywhere in the East and in the course of time many were 
translated into Latin, expurgated of the more offensive portions. 
But they were still repeatedly and virulently attacked for their 
too philosophical, too broadly figurative treatment of religious 
topics.’° As the state of learning declined and men became more 
literal minded, their distrust of Origen increased. In the year 
400, he and his “blasphemous opinions” were condemned by 
Pope Anastasius. In 553, the Fifth General Council held at 
Constantinople anathematized him along with Arius and other 
heretics.”* In the West, he almost ceased to be read and the 
stigma of heresy hung around his name through all the Middle 
Ages. The commentaries on Genesis and Matthew are extant in 
only a few fragments, quoted in other men’s writings. Our 
references barely suffice to show that Origen shared the general 
opinion regarding the place and manner of Peter’s death. 


74 Infra, pp. 312-313. On Origen’s attitude toward the Roman theory of the 
Petrine powers, vide infra, p. 316. 

75 See, for example, Jerome’s list of Origen’s errors; Epistola 7, Ad Pam- 
machium (trans. in J. C. Ayer, A Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 
486-487) and the decretal attributed to Pope Gelasius, De Recipiendis et Non 
Recipiendis Libris, IV. Cf. E. v. Dobschiitz, Das Decretum Gelasianwm de Libris 
recipiendis et non recipiendis (Leipzig, 1912), p. 10. The translation in Ayer, op. 
cit., Pp. 532-536 (V, 21), follows the numbering in Mansi. 

8 J. C. Ayer, op. cit., pp. 487-488, 542-543, 552-553. 


90 THE SEE OF PETER 


On Origen, vide A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis 
Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I, pp. 332-405, Vol. I,? pp. 835— 
842; A. Harnack, History of Dogma (trans. by N. Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 
1897-1901), Vol. II, pp. 332-378; J. Langen, Vaticanische Dogma (4 vols., 
- Bonn, 1871), Vol. I, p. 67; K. J. Neumann, Der rdmische Staat und die 
allgemeine Kirche (Leipzig, 1900), Vol. I, pp. 265 sqqg.; W. Fairweather, 
Origen and Greek Patristic Theology (New York, 1901); R. Seeberg, Lehr- 
buch der Dogmengeschichte (Leipzig, 1895-1898), Vol. I, pp. 303 sqq.; 
O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (trans. by T. Shahan, St. Louis, 1908), § 39; 
H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History to A.D. 313 (2 vols., London, 1912), 
Vol. II, chap. XX. 


In Genesim, III, summarized by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesi- 
astica, III, 1. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen 
christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten dret Jahrhunderte), 
TAT 68 


Meanwhile the holy apostles and disciples of our Savior 
were scattered over the whole world. Parthia, according to 
tradition, was allotted to Thomas, Scythia to Andrew and 
Asia to John, who, after he had dwelt there for some time, 
died at Ephesus. Peter seems to have preached in Pontus, 
Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and Asia ™ to the Jews of the 
dispersion. And at last, having come to Rome, he was 
crucified head downward,” for he had asked that he might 
suffer in this way. What do we need to say of Paul, who 
fulfilled the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum 
and afterwards suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero? 
These facts are related by Origen in the third volume of his 
Commentary on Genesis. 


In Matthaeum, I, quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 
VI, 25. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christ- 
lichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), IY, 
576. 

The second [gospel] is by Mark, who composed it after 


the instructions of Peter, who in his catholic epistle acknowl- 
77 x Peter I, 1. 78 Supra, p. 85, n. 66, 


THE PETRINE TRADITION QI 


edges him as a son, saying: ‘‘ The church that is at Babylon, 
elect together with you, saluteth you and so doth Mark, 
my son.” ™ 


PORPHYRY OF TYRE (?) 


(c. 230-300) 


In the following excerpts we have the only known surviving 
comment of a pagan on the story of Peter, preserved by the fact 
of its incorporation in an apologetic Christian work of the early 
fifth century. The author of this latter was one Macarius 
Magnes, probably to be identified with Macarius, bishop of 
Magnesia in Lydia or in Caria, who was a member of the church 
party hostile to Chrysostom. He wrote in five books an imagi- 
nary dialogue between himself and a pagan philosopher, in the 
course of which the philosopher criticised or ridiculed various 
passages in the New Testament and he himself defended them. 
The speeches of the philosopher seem to have been culled mainly 
from the treatise of the Neoplatonist Porphyry, Against the 
Christians, composed about the year 280 and now lost. Macarius 
does not expressly say, as he does in other instances, that our 
quotations are from Porphyry, but they are both like Porphyry 
in style and scathing sarcasm. Porphyry himself spent much 
time at Rome about the middle of the third century and came 
into relations with the Christians there. It is clear that he in- 
vestigated their writings and traditions with unusual care. He 
regarded Christ with respect as a noble sage but despised the 
Church of his own day as crude, inconsistent and steeped in 
delusion. He was mystified that men like Origen, who had 
delved into “the old philosophy,” could still remain believers.*° 
Porphyry’s onslaught was answered by Eusebius, Methodius of 


79 y Peter V, 13. Compare the similar extract taken by Eusebius from 
Clement, supra, p. 80. 

80 See Porphyry’s scornful references to Origen, quoted by Eusebius, Hzstorta 
Ecclesiastica, V1, 19, 2-3, and to the Christian Gnostics’ criticisms of Plato and 
their use of spurious revelations, in his Life of Plotinus, printed as introduction to 
Plotinus (trans. by S. Mackenna, 3 vols., London, 1917-1924), Vol. I, p. 15. 
A. Harnack, Porphyrius “ Gegen die Christen” in Abhandlungen der Kéntglich 
Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophische-Historische Klasse 
(Berlin, 1916). 


Q2 THE SEE OF PETER 


Tyre and other Christian scholars before Macarius, but their 
books have disappeared. 


On Macarius, vide A. Harnack, Miscelle zum Aufenthalt des Petrus in 
Rom in Theologische Literaturzeitung (Leipzig, 1902), pp. 604-605; T. H. 
Bernard, Macarius Magnes in Journal of Theological Studies (London, 1901), 
pp. 610-611; A. Harnack, Kritik des Neuen Testaments von eimem griechi- 
schen Philosophen des 3. Jahrhunderts, in O. Gebhardt, A. Harnack, C. 
Schmidt (editors), Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchrist- 
lichen Literatur (Leipzig, 1882—), Third Series Vol. VII. 


Macarius Magnes, Unigenitus, III, 22; IV, 4. Text. Ed. by 
C. Blondel, Macaru Magnetis Quae Supersunt, 102, 162. 
This leader [ Peter] of the band of the disciples, who had 

been taught by God to despise death, was seized by Herod 

and escaped and thus brought punishment on his guards. 

For he escaped by night and when day broke there was 

consternation among the soldiers as to how Peter had got 

out. And Herod inquired for him and when he did not find 
him, questioned the guards and ordered them to be led away, 
that is, to be executed. So one wonders why Jesus gave the 

keys of heaven to such a man as Peter and why in such a 

time of disorder and tumult, beset with such grave dangers, 

he said: ‘‘ Feed my lambs,” if, in fact, the sheep are the 
faithful who flock to the mystery of consummation and the 
lambs are the throng of catechumens who are fed still on 
the simple milk of doctrine. Furthermore, it is recorded that 

Peter fed the lambs for several months only before he was 

crucified,” although Jesus had said that the gates of hell 

should not prevail against him... . 

Now let us notice what was said to Paul. ‘ Then spake 
the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, ‘ Be not afraid 
but speak, . . . For I am with thee and no man shall set 


81 The writer, who knew the New Testament so well, cannot mean that Peter’s 
death occurred only a few months after his master’s. It is more reasonable to 
suppose that he is alluding to the length of Peter’s activities in Rome before his 
martyrdom. If so, this is the oldest suggestion that we have as to the duration of 
Peter’s stay there, 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 93 


on thee to hurt thee.’” ** Notwithstanding, this fine fellow 
was overpowered at Rome and beheaded, he who had said 
that we should judge angels, even as Peter, who had received 
the right to feed the lambs, was fastened to the cross and 
crucified. 


PETER OF ALEXANDRIA 
(d. 311) 


Our next allusion to the martyrdom of Peter comes from a 
successor of Clement and Origen in the school at Alexandria. 
Peter of Alexandria was both headmaster and bishop from 300 
until his own death as a martyr, in 311. In 306, he wrote a 
treatise on penance, which has been preserved in both Greek 
and Syriac. Its fourteen canons prescribed the conditions on 
which persons who had abjured Christ or lapsed during the per- 
secution of Diocletian might be restored to communion in the 
church of Egypt. Those who had sacrificed to the pagan gods 
in sheer panic, without facing the torture, were assigned long 
periods of probation, whereas those who had broken down only 
after imprisonment and torment were treated more leniently. 
Those who had yielded temporarily under suffering and had 
later repented of their weakness and borne what penalty the 
magistrates laid upon them were received again into full com- 
munion as having already performed an adequate penance. In 
such connection, it was natural to speak of the great martyr 
apostles. 


On Peter of Alexandria vide A. Harnack, Geschichte der alichristlichen 
Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I, pp. 443 sqq.; 
N. Bonwetsch in J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopdadie fur protestan- 
tische Theologie und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. XV, pp. 
215 sgqg.; W. E. Crum, Texts Attributed to Peter of Alexandria, in Journal 
of Theological Studies (London, 1903), Vol. IV, pp. 387 sqgq. 


82 Acts, XVIII, 9, 10. 


94 THE SEE OF PETER 


Peter of Alexandria, Epistola Canonica, canon IX. Text. 
J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XVIII, 483. 


Thus Peter, the first of the apostles, after being fre- 
quently arrested and imprisoned and treated with dishonor, 
was finally crucified at Rome. Likewise, the illustrious Paul, 
who was often betrayed and imperilled unto death, after en- 
during greatly and glorying in his many persecutions and 
afflictions, was beheaded with a sword in the same city. 


LACTANTIUS OF AFRICA 
(fl. 310) 


Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius, a native probably of 
Africa, was the son of pagan parents, who in mature life became 
a convert to Christianity. For his wide acquaintance with the 
classics and the elegance of his literary style he was nominated 
by Diocletian professor of Latin rhetoric in the new capital city 
of Nicomedia but, after a few years in office, he was ejected for 
his faith during the Christian persecution. Thenceforth he 
seems to have suffered much privation. In or about the year 
314, after the accession of Constantine, he wrote an impassioned 
book, entitled The Deaths of Persecutors, in which he described 
the direful ends of Diocletian, Maximian, Maximin and other 
enemies of Christianity, both past and contemporary. His 
longest and most important work was The Divine Institutes, a 
manual of Christian theology, couched in fine, Ciceronian dic- 
tion. Jerome accused him of failure to comprehend the inner 
mysteries of Christ’s teaching, but in the fifteenth century, when 
grace of expression was at a higher premium than solidity of 
thought, his writings were hugely admired and went through 
many editions. 

His references to Peter at Rome contain substantially noth- 
ing new, but in The Deaths of Persecutors they are so put to- 


83 The first appearance in our ecclesiastical writers of this title, which was 
soon to become a commonplace. Matthew’s list of the Twelve whom Jesus called 
begins: “ The first, Simon, who is called Peter,” etc. Supra, p. 22. As the prestige 
of Peter increased, it was natural to interpret the adjective “ first,” primus, or, in 
Greek, rp&ros, as meaning first in precedence or rank.The title had been also con- 
ferred upon him by Pseudo-Clement, infra, p. 163. ; 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 95 


gether as to form a clearer and more connected story than any 
we have met hitherto, giving what is apparently a summary of 
the tradition in the shape that was then current. We may note 
that Lactantius does not conceive of Peter’s residence at Rome 
as covering more than a short time during the reign of Nero,™* 
and that, although he reckons Peter’s missionary years as twenty- 
five, he distinctly implies that they were spent elsewhere. 


On Lactantius, vide A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur 
bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I,? pp. 736 sqqg.; Preuschen 
in J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopddie fiir protestantische Theologie 
und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. XI, pp. 203-210; R. Pichon, 
Lactance, Etude sur le Mouvement Philosophique et Religieux sous le Régne 


de Constantin (Paris, 1901). 


Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, IV, 21. Text. Corpus 
Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XIX, 367. 


But the disciples, dispersed through the provinces, laid 
everywhere the foundations of the Church, doing great and 
almost incredible miracles in the name of their Lord and 
Master; for at his departure he had endowed them with 
power and strength, by which the doctrine of the new gospel 
might be founded and made firm. But he also unfolded to 
them all things which were about to happen, which Peter 
and Paul preached at Rome.** And this preaching, being 
written down for the sake of remembrance, has remained 
with us. 


De Mortibus Persecutorum, 2. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, VII, 174-177. 


| After Christ’s ascension] the disciples, of whom there 
were eleven at that time, added Matthias and later Paul in 
place of the traitor Judas and scattered throughout the whole 
earth to preach the gospel, as their Lord and Master had 


: 84 In this respect Lactantius’ account harmonizes with that of Porphyry, 
written some thirty years earlier. Supra, p. 92 and n. 81. 
85 Compare this with Phlegon’s ascription to Jesus, —or Peter,— of power 
to foretell events. Supra, p. 73. 


96 THE SEE OF PETER 


commanded them, and for twenty-five years, until the be- 
ginning of the reign of Nero, they were laying the founda- 
tions of churches through every province and in every city. 
And during Nero’s reign, Peter came to Rome and, after 
performing certain miracles by the power of God committed 
unto him, converted many to the true religion and built up 
a faithful and steadfast temple to God. When Nero heard 
of these things and observed that not only in Rome but 
everywhere and daily a great multitude was abandoning the 
worship of idols, going over to the new religion and con- 
demning the old, forasmuch as he was an execrable and 
pernicious tyrant, he set about to raze the heavenly temple 
and destroy the true faith; and he was the first of all the 
persecutors of God’s servants. He crucified Peter and slew 
Pauls. 8 


3. PETER THE FOUNDER OF THE ROMAN EPISCOPATE 


EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA 


(c. 265-340) 

Eusebius, the ‘‘ Father of Church History,” bishop of Caes- 
area in Syria, was a friend of the emperor Constantine and 
wrote during his reign and immediately afterwards. His career, 
whether as bishop or as theologian, was not wholly satisfactory 
to the orthodox party in the Church of his day. His mind did 
not run spontaneously along metaphysical channels and he failed 
to maintain a sound and unequivocal position in the current 
controversies regarding the first two persons of the Trinity. He 
thought peace more important than insistence upon difficult 
points of theology and preferred to make concessions on dogmas, 
which profounder men thought vital, rather than to perpetuate 
antagonisms. He signed, to be sure, the militant profession of 
faith drawn up at Nicaea, but only at the express wish of the 
emperor. Later, he held communion with members of the Arian 
party, who denied the eternal, uncreated being of the Son, and 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 97 


took part in synods which deposed bishops of the orthodox per- 
suasion for being too zealous or too contentious. , 

His fame at the present time rests chiefly upon his achieve- 
ments as a historian, his Life of Constantine, his Chronicle and 
his History of the Church from its foundation to the year 323. 
The Life of Constantine *° contains much invaluable biographical 
material but it is colored by Eusebius’ purpose to depict his 
friend and patron as the blameless Christian warrior and prince, 
in opposition to the pagan writers who dwelt heavily upon his 
faults. The Chronicle, based on earlier tables by Julius Afri- 
canus,*” was the most ambitious attempt made thus far to cor- 
relate and combine the historical records of the Jewish and the. 
Gentile past. It was in form a tabulated list in parallel columns, 
synchronizing the principal events from the creation to the year 
325, set down in order of their several dates in the various na- 
tional systems of chronology. It marked an immense advance 
toward the construction of a world history and a comprehensive 
survey of the movements of the human race. The Greek text 
of The Chronicle has been lost, except for a few extracts pre- 
served by Syncellus, a historian of the ninth century. The sub- 
stance survives in Armenian and Syrian versions and in a Latin 
paraphrase by Jerome, who carried on the tables to the year 
379. Eusebius’ calculations were revised and corrected from 
time to time but from the date of their publication they fixed 
a starting point from which all subsequent work began. 

The Church History, from which we have already drawn nu- 
merous quotations, was in its way just as unique an accomplish- 
ment. Nothing of the sort had been undertaken during the 
period of Christian obscurity and persecution, which lasted until 
Eusebius’ own day, but in the episcopal library of Caesarea he 
found stored away a mass of loose documents of varying age and 
character, which he studied to excellent purpose. Many of them 

he incorporated in part or entire in his History. His narrative, 

86 For an extract from The Life of Constantine, vide infra, p. 484. 

87 Julius Africanus, a Libyan, who saw service in the Orient under Septimius 
Severus, compiled in 221 a chronography or outline of world history. It was much 
admired and used by later students but nothing of it in its original form has come 


down to us. H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische Chrono- 
graphie (Leipzig, 2 Pts. in I, 1880-1898). 


98 THE SEE OF PETER 


therefore, though often imperfect in arrangement and uncritical 
or partisan in viewpoint, has saved for us a quantity of priceless 
information which otherwise would undoubtedly have perished. 
In fact, to write a history of the early Church without using 
the material preserved by Eusebius would be almost as hopeless | 
a task as to write a history of the Jewish race without consulting 
the Old Testament. 

The chief interest of the following excerpts lies in the effort 
they show on the part of Eusebius as a chronologer to fix the 
exact dates of Peter’s sojourn at Rome. In his Church History ** 
Eusebius named no years but said merely that Peter came to 
Rome in the reign of Claudius (41-54). His reason for placing 
Peter’s arrival so surprisingly early is not evident. It may have 
been simply the influence of the popular legend. Justin Martyr, 
who wrote of Simon Magus, Peter’s deadly adversary in the 
realm of apocryphal fiction, had said that Simon reached the city 
at that time *° and Peter in the common versions of the legend 
followed hard on Simon’s heels. Eusebius himself depicted Peter 
as coming to destroy Simon.®*® All forms of tradition, however, — 
united in making Nero (54-68) the instrument of Peter’s death. 
The impression, therefore, was growing up that Peter had lived 
and labored in Rome for many years. The allusions in the New 
Testament to Peter’s later life, which might have discouraged 
such an impression,** seem to have been totally overlooked. But 
Eusebius felt some uncertainty in the matter, for in The Chron- 
icle he set a yet earlier date for Peter’s arrival at Rome, namely, 
the third year of Caligula, 39. He may have possibly recalled 
for. the moment the narrative of Hippolytus, who appears to 
imply that Peter was already in Rome when Simon Magus pre- 
sented himself there.°? Eusebius then put Peter’s death in 66 
and, by an oversight, assigned the general persecution by Nero 
to the same year. Thus he actually gave the apostle a residence 
of twenty-six or twenty-seven years in the capital. 

88 Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 14, 6. Infra, p. 189. 

89 Infra, p. 130. 

90 Infra, pp. 188-189. Eusebius is the first of the more serious or “ ecclesi- 
astical ” writers to countenance any part of the apocryphal legend of Peter. For 


his method of treating it, vide infra, p. 181. 
91 Supra, pp, 47-56. 82 Infra, p. 133. 


ae Diego 


= 


ES eS ay Sine ee Pe ee ao 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 99 


The excerpts have a value also as betokening some perplexity 
in Eusebius’ mind as to the precise position occupied by Peter 
in the church organization at Rome. In the Chronicle he stated 
that Peter “ presided over” the church, a rather vague phrase, 
and that after him Linus became bishop.** The History was 
hardly more explicit. Eusebius there remarked that “Linus 
was the first after Peter to hold the bishopric’ and went on to 
speak of Clement, the second from Linus, as “the third bishop 
of the Roman church.” Scholars have argued at length over 
these ambiguous passages in endeavors to ascertain whether or 
not Eusebius thought of Peter as a bishop as well as an apostle. 
He certainly conceived of him as head or leader of the Roman 
community but nowhere evidently among his ancient documents 
did he find warrant for bestowing on him the formal title of 
bishop. It was in Rome itself that Peter’s name was put at the 
head of an episcopal list as the first bishop of the see.® 


On Eusebius, see A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur 
bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol. I,? pp. 551 sqq.; J. B. Light- 
foot in W. Smith and H. Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (4 vols., 
Boston, 1877-1887), Vol. II, pp. 308 sqqg.; J. Van den Gheyn in P. Vigouroux, 
Dictionnaire de la Bible (5 vols., Paris, 1895-1912), Vol. II, pp. 2051 sqq.; 
A. C. McGiffert, Eusebius, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene 
Fathers of the Christian Church (14 vols., New York, 1890-1903), Second 
Series, Vol. I, Introduction; O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (St. Louis, 1908), 
§62; C. H. Turnér, The Early Episcopal Lists, 1; The Chronicle of 
Eusebius, in Journal of Theological Studies (London, 1900), Vol. I, pp. 181 
sqq.; J. T. Shotwell, An Introduction to the History of History (Records of 
Civilization Series), (New York, 1922), chap. XXVI. 


93 See note 95 on the next page. The Greek verbs, smpoliorayat, mpoxd?nua 
literally “stand before” or “ over,’ “sit before’? or ‘over,’ are employed in 
Paul’s Epistles and in the writings of the early Fathers in two senses, the first, of 
directing or acting in general as a leader anywhere, and the second, of presiding 
Over in an official or magisterial capacity, as a bishop presides in a church or a 
chairman in an assembly. Compare, for example, Ignatius’ uses of the second 
verb, infra, p. 241, n. 13, and often elsewhere in his letters. Justin Martyr, 
I Apology, LXV. Eusebius, in his History, frequently but not always employs 
the first verb as the equivalent of “serve as bishop.” Yet it does not seem 
possible to insist dogmatically on such an interpretation here. He may have 
chosen the word for the very reason that it was not too definite. 

94 In the Liberian Catalogue. Infra, p. 107. In the middle of the third cen- 
tury, Cyprian of Carthage believed that Peter exercised episcopal power at Rome 
and that from him all subsequent bishops derived their authority and Stephen of 
Rome declared that he occupied “ the chair of Peter.” Infra, pp. 328, 379, 415. In 
the West, Peter may have been regarded as bishop much earlier than in the East. 


100 THE SEE OF PETER 


Eusebius, Chronicon. Texts. 


Peter the apostle, hav- 
ing first founded the 
church at Antioch, goes 
to the city of Rome 
and there preaches the 
gospel and abides there 
as head of the church 
for twenty years.” 


After Peter, Linus held 
the bishopric of the 
Roman church for 
fourteen years. 


To crown all his other 
crimes Nero instituted 
the first persecution of 
the Christians, in the 
course of which the 
apostles, Peter and 
Paul, suffered martyr- 
dom at Rome. 


Olympiad 


204 


211 


212 


Eusebius Werke (Die grie- 
chischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahr- 
hunderte), V, 214, 216. Armenian text translated into 
German. Eusebii Chronicorum Libri Duo, ed. by A. 
Schoene (Berlin, 1866-1875), II, 150, 156. Armenian 
text translated into Latin. 


Year from the 


birth of 
Abraham 


2055 


Year of 
Gaius % 


3 


Year of 


Nero 


I2 


13 


Year of 
Agrippa 
in Judaea 


2 


Year of — 
Agrippa oe 


22 


23 


95 Syncellus (supra, p. 97) preserves the original Greek of this sentence. 
And he presided over the church in Antioch and then over the church in Rome 


until his death.” ‘O dé air s wera ris & ’Avrioxeia éxkAnoias Kal Tis &»y “Paun mpotorn. 


” 


The phrase, “ for twenty years,” is the addition of the Armenian translator. 


96 The emperor Caligula. 


97 Herod Agrippa I, appointed tetrarch by Caligula soon after his accession. 
98 Herod Agrippa II. His reign is reckoned as beginning with his father’s 


death in 44, though he was not appointed to any kingdom until 49 and was not — 


transferred to Palestine until 53. 


aD eA oe eS 
bi Vn 


ap 2 tb etic e cabeeet ae ate 
2 pe sie oe eae Bh 


THE PETRINE TRADITION IOI 


Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 4: 1, 2, 9; 13; 36: 2. Text. 
Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrift- 
steller), II’, 192, 194, 228, 274. 


III 4: 1 That Paul preached to the gentiles and laid 
the foundations of the churches “ from Jerusalem round 
about even unto Illyricum ” is evident both from his own 
words and from the account which Luke has given in the 
Acts. 

2 And in how many provinces Peter preached Christ and 
taught the doctrine of the new covenant to those of the 


circumcision is clear from his own epistle, which we have 


said is undisputed,” and in which he writes to the Hebrews 
of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and 
Bithynia. But the number and names of those who became 
faithful and zealous followers of the apostles and were 
deemed worthy to tend the churches they had founded, it is 
not easy to tell, except for those enumerated in the writings 
of Paul. 


9 As to the rest of his followers, Paul tells us that 
Crescens was sent to Gaul. Linus, whom he mentions in 
the Second Epistle to Timothy as his companion in Rome, 
was the first after Peter to hold the bishopric of the Roman 
church,’ as we have already said. Clement also, who was 
himself appointed third bishop of the Roman church, was, 
as Paul testifies, his co-laborer and fellow soldier. 


13 In the second year of his [Titus’| reign, Linus, who 
had been bishop of the church of Rome for twelve years,” 
delivered up his office to Anencletus. 


99 Supra, p. 57. N ? : 

100 A little earlier, Eusebius speaks of Linus as “ the first to hold the bishopric 
of the Roman church after the martyrdom of Paul and Peter.” Historia Ecclesi- 
astica, III, 2. : 

101 The figures for the duration of the first pontificates are all as mythical as 


102 THE SEE OF PETER 


36: 2 And at the same time, Papias,*°’ who was him- 
self bishop of the parish of Hierapolis, won renown, as 
did Ignatius,’ who held the bishopric of Antioch, second 
in succession to Peter, and whose fame is celebrated by very 
many to this day. 


LisBeR PoONTIFICALIS 


(Fourth Century Source) 


The Liber Pontificalis, the oldest history of the Papacy, was 
put together by an unknown member of the Roman curia during 
the sixth or the seventh century. In its final shape, it was a 
strange composite of authentic record, embellished tradition, and 
downright fabrication. It comprised a series of lives of individual 
popes from Peter to the writer’s own day and incorporated and 
blended materials from many earlier sources. The account of 
Peter was, of course, quite mythical, based upon the apocryphal 
histories. On the other hand, the life of Silvester, the contem- 
porary of Constantine, contained, beside the fantastic legend of 
Silvester’s part in Constantine’s conversion, descriptions of ba- 
silicas built by the emperor and of imperial donations to the 
churches, which rest apparently upon genuine fourth century 
registers, preserved perhaps in the Roman episcopal archives 
down to the author’s time. 

It is no longer possible to doubt that Constantine actually 
built a basilica in honor of Peter over what he supposed to be 


those for Peter’s own. Supra, p. 98. On the origin and value of these figures, 
see L. R. Loomis, The Book of the Popes (Records of Civilization Series, New 
York, 1916), ix—xiv. 

102 On Papias, vide supra, pp. 73-74. 

103 On Ignatius of Antioch, vide supra, pp. 71-72. Eusebius refrained from 
calling Peter the first bishop of Antioch, as Jerome eventually did. Infra, p. 115. 
However, he could not allow that the Peter whom Paul withstood and rebuked 
there (Galatians, I-II) was the great apostle. He suggested that it was one of the 
young men whom the disciples sent out from Jerusalem and only a “name 
brother” of Peter, the apostle. Historia Ecclesiastica, 1, 12, 1. Jerome also tried 
to explain away this blemish on Peter’s reputation by arguing that the disagree- 
ment between the apostles was not real but feigned and that Peter voluntarily 
assumed the position of wrongdoer in order that Paul might have more ground 
for insisting vehemently on the truth. Jerome had a warm discussion with 
Augustine as to the admissibility of such a method of exegesis. Jerome, Epistolae, 
CXII; Augustine, Epistolae, XXVIII and XL. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 103 


the apostle’s tomb. The form of ancient St. Peter’s was that of 
a “tomb church,” constructed around and adapted to the re- 
quirements of a site already fixed by an older grave. During 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this basilica was torn down 
to make way for the present cathedral, but the bricks taken from 
it show the Constantinian stamp. In 1594, when the masons 
were digging to lay the foundations for the modern high altar, 
they opened up a narrow shaft at the bottom of which they saw 
by the light of a torch a golden cross lying on a dark floor. 
Pope Clement VIII, who was summoned to witness the sight, 
ordered the shaft filled up at once and the spot has never since 
been disturbed. Whether the cross was Constantine’s or not, 
whether the sarcophagus he enclosed in bronze is still intact as 
his workmen left it, cannot be told. Where Constantine found 
the coffin which he encased so solidly we do not know. All that 
can positively be asserted is that the fourth century did enshrine 
and venerate upon the traditional site of martyrdom ** what it 
believed to be Peter’s very bones. 

The following passage is part, apparently, of the extracts 
taken by the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis from the records 
of the Roman church. It may or may not have been written 
originally by one who saw the work done or who had heard a 
first-hand report of it. It is probably as old, at least, as the close 
of the fourth century. 


For full text and description of the Liber Pontificalis, see L. Duchesne’s 
edition (2 vols., Paris, 1886-1892); also Th. Mommsen’s edition of the first 
part, Libri Pontificalis Pars Prima (Berlin, 1898), in Monumenta Germaniae 
Historica, Gesta Pontificum Romanorum, Vol. I; L. R. Loomis, The Book 
of the Popes (Records of Civilization Series, New York, 1916). For 
archaeological studies and plans of old St. Peter’s, vide A. L. Frothingham, 
The Monuments of Christian Rome (New York, 1908), pp. 25-29; R. A. 
Lanciani, The Destruction of Ancient Rome (New York, 1903), pp. 31-323 
R. A. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome (Boston, 1893), pp. 132-142, 
148-150; H. Leitzmann, Petrus und Paulus in Rom; Liturgische und 
archdologische Studien (Bonn, 1915); O. Marucchi, Elements d’Archéologie 
Chrétienne (3 vols., Paris, 1899-1902), Vol. III, Basiliques et Eglises de 
Rome; H. Grisar, History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages 
(London, 1911), Vol. I, pp. 266-305. 

104 Supra, p. 82. 


104 THE SEE OF PETER 


Liber Pontificalis. Text. Ed. by Th. Mommsen, Monu- 
menta Germaniae Historica, Gesta Pontificum Roma- 
norum, I, 56-57. 


At the same time, Constantine Augustus built, by request 
of Silvester the bishop,’’’ the basilica of blessed Peter, the 
apostle, in the shrine of Apollo “** and laid there the coffin 
with the body of the holy Peter; the coffin itself he enclosed 
on all sides with bronze, which is unchangeable; at the head 
5 feet, at the feet 5 feet, at the right side 5 feet, at the left 
side 5 feet, underneath 5 feet, and overhead 5 feet: thus he 
enclosed the body of blessed Peter, the apostle, and laid it 
away. 

And above he set porphyry columns for adornment and 
other spiral columns,**’ which he brought from Greece. 

He made also a vaulted roof in the basilica, gleaming 
with polished gold, and over the body of the blessed Peter, 
above the bronze which enclosed it, he set a cross of purest 
gold, weighing 150 lbs., in place of a measure.” 


CHRONOGRAPHER OF 354 


The name given above is commonly applied to the unknown 
compiler of a manual or almanac for the city of Rome, drawn up 
in 354 and designed especially for the convenience of Christian 
residents or visitors to the city. It contained a miscellaneous col- 


lection of documents, chronological lists of Roman consuls and © 


105 The clause, “ by request . .. bishop,” is not in all the texts and is prob- 
ably an interpolation. 

106 The spot covered by the basilica lay between the ancient Via Aurelia and 
the Via Triumphalis, near the edge of the circus built by Caligula and used by 
Nero for public games, combats and spectacles, close to the temple of Cybele, 
which by a popular error was later known as a temple of Apollo. For a diagram 
of the site, see R. A. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 126-132. 

107 These spiral columns formed a row or colonnade in front of the altar, 
separating it from the nave. Several of them may still be seen filling niches in the 
piers that support the cupola of the present church, and one is venerated in a 
side chapel. A legend arose during the Middle Ages that they had been brought 
from the Gate Beautiful of the Temple in Jerusalem and they appear in Rafael’s 
cartoon of the healing of the impotent man by Peter and John. 

108 An unintelligible expression. The text is undoubtedly corrupt. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 105 


prefects, an official municipal calendar, a topographical descrip- 
tion of the various city districts or wards, and brief topical out- 
lines of general and Roman history. Of particular value to a 
Christian reader were a table of dates for Easter from the year 
312 to the year 411, a calendar of the feast days and anniver- 
saries of martyrdoms observed by the Roman church, and a 
catalogue of the popes from Peter to Liberius, who was installed 
bishop in 352. ‘The last named document has been called the 
Liberian Catalogue*”* from the fact that it was compiled during 
 Liberius’ pontificate, although there is nothing to prove that he 
had any part in its preparation or that it ever received official 
sanction. 

Our extracts are taken, one from the Liberian Catalogue, the 
other from the calendar of Roman feasts. The former includes 
the explicit assertion that Peter was the founder not only of 
the Roman church but of the Roman see and occupied it as its 
first bishop for twenty-five years. The formalizing tendency, 
which we observed at work in the Asiatic Eusebius, with his in- 
terest in offices and dates, has in this anonymous Roman ad- 
vanced still further. The simple, shadowy tradition, which in 
the beginning reported simply that Peter had once preached at 
Rome to the infant church and had shed his blood there under 
Nero, is here transformed into a precise statement of years, 
months and days and pontifical function. The imagination calls 
up no longer a vagrant, missionary apostle, appealing here and 
there to groups of hearers on inconspicuous street corners or 
under a sheltering roof, but a stately prelate in his official robe 
speaking “ ex cathedra,” from an official throne. The tendency 
to magnificence had, of course, been accelerated by the increase 
in the power of the popes after Constantine and the natural de- 
sire to justify this power by the oldest and highest sanctions. 
Our chronographer goes so far in his zeal as to bring Peter to 
Rome under Tiberius, directly after the Ascension, thus outdoing 
even Eusebius **° and contradicting utterly the testimony of the 
Book of Acts. He also sets his death at an impossibly early 
date, the year after Nero’s accession. Jerome corrected these 


109 For the Liberian Catalogue in full, vide infra, pp. 710-715. 
110 Supra, pp. 98, 100. 


106 THE SEE OF PETER 


glaring errors, while preserving the length of Peter’s Roman 
episcopate.*** 

The excerpt from the calendar of feasts is of considerable 
archaeological interest but raises some troublesome questions. 
Why, one hundred and fifty years after Caius pointed to Peter’s 
“trophy ” at the Vatican,’? and twenty-five years after Con- 
stantine built a basilica there over his tomb, was his memory 
venerated by the church at the crypt called “ad catacumbas” 
on the Appian Way? What is the meaning of the date 258, as- 
sociated in the calendar with this commemoration? Duchesne,**® 
in agreement with many other scholars, offers a plausible solu- 
tion for the riddle, to the effect that in 258, when the persecution 
of Valerian was at its height, the bodies of both Peter and Paul 
were removed for safety from their original tombs on the Vati- 
can and on the Ostian Way, and secreted temporarily in this ob- 
scure hiding place, thence to be produced in triumph under the 
peace of Constantine, and that the church continued to regard 
as hallowed the place where they had lain for some sixty years. 
A more iconoclastic critic refuses to accept this explanation. 
Guignebert,*** for example, believes that Caius’ “‘ trophies ” were 
merely monuments erected by the Christians to mark the sites 
of martyrdom and that the actual burial places of the apostles 
were unknown for the first two centuries after their death; that 
the date 258 was the year of a so-called “discovery ” of their 
bodies in the crypt “‘ ad catacumbas,” which adjoined two Jew- 
ish cemeteries, and that the translation of these bodies under 
Constantine to the Vatican and the Ostian Way respectively, 
coupled with the old tradition of martyrdom on those spots, gave 
rise to the conviction in the later fourth century that they had 
been originally interred there.1® 


111 Infra, pp. 114-116. 112 Supra, p. 83. 

118 L. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, I, civ; 151, n. 7. A recent argument for 
this view is in H. Lietzmann, Petrus und Palus in Rom; Liturgische und 
archdologische Studien, backed by fresh data from investigations into the crypt 
beneath the church of San Sebastiano. 

114 C, Guignebert, La Printauté de Pierre, pp. 377 sqq. 

115 See also the confused stories offered by the apocryphal legends of the fourth 
and fifth centuries to explain the association with the “ad catacumbas.” They 
describe an atterapt by Oriental Christians to steal the apostles’ bodies from their 
original tombs and their transfer for safety to the crypt on the Appian Way, until 
they could be laid in new and stronger sepulchres on the old sites. Infra, pp. 
178, 180. Gregory I knew of some such legend. Epistolae, IV, 30, 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 107 


Catalogus Liberianus. Text. Monumenta Germaniae His- 
toria, Auctores Antiquissimi, IX, Chronica Minora, ed. 
by Th. Mommsen, I, 73. 


In the reign of Tiberius Caesar our Lord Jesus Christ 
suffered under the constellation of the Gemini, March 2s, 
and after his ascension blessed Peter instituted the episco- 
pate. From his time we name in due order of succession 
every one who has been bishop, how many years he was in 
office and under what emperor. 

Peter, 25 years, 1 month, 9 days, was bishop in the time 
of Tiberius Caesar and of Gaius and of Tiberius Claudius 
and of Nero, from the consulship of Minucius and Longinus 
(A.D. 30) to that of Nero and Verus (A.D. 55). He suffered 
together with Paul, June 29, under the aforesaid consuls in 
the reign of Nero. 


Feriale Ecclesiae Romanae. Text. Monumenta Germaniae 
Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 1X, Chronica Minora, 
ed. by Th. Mommsen, I, 71. 


December 25 Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judaea. 
In the month of January 
January 20 ~=—«‘Fabianus *” in the cemetery of Callistus and 
Sebastian *** in the Catacombs. 
January 21 Agnes *** on the Nomentana. 
In the month of February 
February 22 Anniversary of the chair of Peter.” 
In the month of March 


116 The festivals at this period consisted mostly of commemoration services in 
memory of certain third and fourth century martyrs, held usually at their tombs. 
Pope Fabianus died in 250 and his name may still be seen in the papal crypt of 
the cemetery of Callistus. Vide infra, p. 313. 

117 A Roman soldier and martyr, said to have been executed by Diocletian 
in 288. The church of San Sebastiano over the crypt ‘ad catacumbas” marks 
his grave. 

118 Another traditional victim of Diocletian’s persecution. A basilica was 
erected during the fourth century in her honor on the Via Nomentana, over the 
catacomb where she was supposed to lie. 

119 A later martyrology, ascribed to Jerome, gave this title more fully. 


108 THE SEE OF PETER 


March 7 Perpetua and Felicitas **° in Africa. 
In the month of May 
May 19 Parthenus and Calocerus ** in the cemetery 


of Callistus, in the 9th consulship of Diocle- 
tian and the 8th of Maximian (304). 
In the month of June 
June 29 Peter in the Catacombs and Paul on the 
Ostian Way, in the consulship of Tuscus and 
Bassus (258).*” 


DAMASUS OF ROME 
(Bishop from 366 to 384) 


Another record of considerable interest, testifying to the pres- 
ence of the apostles’ bodies in the crypt “ad catacumbas,” men- 
tioned in the previous paragraphs, is the inscription erected by 
Pope Damasus in the chamber presumably once sanctified by 
their holy relics. Damasus and his secretary Philocalus were the 
first of the long line of Roman church antiquarians. They lived 
at a time as far removed from the beginnings of their church 
as our own time is from that of the sailing of the Mayflower and 


“ Anniversary of the chair of the holy apostle Peter, in which he sat at Antioch.” 
J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (179 vols., Paris, 
1844-1880), Vol. XXX, p. 459. The so-called “‘ chair of Peter,” now preserved 
at the cathedral of St. Peter at Rome, is not older than the third century. The 
“anniversary of the chair’ was probably designed to celebrate Peter’s installation 
as bishop either at Rome or at Antioch. It may have been started early in the 
fourth century, when the fact of Peter’s episcopacy was regarded as established, 
in order to christianize the pagan festival of Caristia. See, on the significance of 
the anniversaries of February 22 and June 209, H. Lietzmann, Petrus und Paulus 
in Rom; Liturgische und archdologische Studien, pp. 19-74, 81-105. 

120 Perpetua, a young matron, and Felicitas, a slave, were among a group of 
martyrs thrown to the wild beasts in Africa in 203. Extracts from an account of 
their death, written by an eyewitness, are in J. C. Ayer’s A Source Book for 
Ancient Church History, pp. 145 sqq. 

121 Two Roman martyrs, the memory of whose sufferings was still compara- 
tively fresh. 

122 Another fourth century calendar gives this note in a more expanded form. 
“The anniversary of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, Peter in the Vatican and 
Paul on the Ostian Way, both in the catacombs; they suffered under Nero; in the 
consulship of Bassus and Tuscus (258).” The martyrology which passes as Jerome’s 
has it still differently. ‘‘ At Rome, the anniversary of the holy apostles Peter and 
Paul and of nine hundred and eighty-seven other martyrs.” This last may perhaps 
be an echo of the tradition that the apostles died in company with many other 
Christians during Nero’s persecution. Supra, pp. 67, 68. J. P. Migne, Patrologiae 
Cursus Completus, Series Latina, Vol. XXX, p. 479. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 109 


they set themselves the serious task of identifying and rescuing 
from oblivion the countless sacred graves and sites in and about 
the city which were already crumbling and overgrown, in dan- 
ger of being totally lost and forgotten. The observant visitor 
to the catacombs or the primitive basilicas can still mark the 
discolored fragments of their memorial inscriptions on the walls, 
carved in letters which set a new standard of beauty for the 
Roman alphabet. Many more of their tablets have long ago 
fallen to pieces and disappeared through fire, neglect or the blows 
of rude invaders. The memorial verses on them, however, were 
in some cases copied down by pilgrims, while the tablets were 
yet in place, and thus have been kept to our day.*** 

The following lines are a translation of the inscription which 
Damasus set up in the so-called Platonia or tomb chamber of the 
apostles, which he also decorated with marbles and frescoes. 
The chamber, now renovated almost beyond recognition, is a 
part of the crypt beneath the church of San Sebastiano on the 
Via Appia. It is to be noted that the lines give no clue what- 
ever as to the date or length of time that the bodies rested there. 

On Damasus, vide O. Marucchi, J] Pontificato del Paba Damaso (Rome, 
1905); O. Marucchi, Christian Epigraphy (trans. by J. A. Willis, Cambridge 
University Press, 1912); J. Wittig, Papst Damasus I, in ROmische Quartal- 
schrift fir christliche Altertumskunde und fiir Kirchengeschichte (Rome, 


1902); H. Lietzmann, Petrus and Paulus in Rom; Liturgische und archdolo- 
gische Studien (Bonn, 1915). 


Inscription in the Platonia. Text. M. thm, Damasi Epi- 
grammata, No. 26. 


This place, you should know, was once the abode of saints; 

Their names, you may learn, were Peter and likewise Paul. 

The East sent hither these disciples, as gladly we confess. 

For Christ’s sake and the merit of his blood they followed 
him among the stars 

And sought the realms of heaven and the kingdoms of the 
righteous. 


123 For other inscriptions of Damasus and for an account of his pontificate, 
vide infra, pp. 446, 595. 


IIO THE SEE OF PETER 


Rome was deemed worthy to retain them as her citizens. 
May Damasus offer them these verses, new stars, in their 
praise! 


OPpTATUS OF MILEVE 


(c. 370) , 

During the pontificate of Damasus, Optatus, bishop of 
Mileve, a town in the Roman province of Numidia, wrote a 
treatise on the Donatist schism, which he dedicated to the 
Christian emperors. We know practically nothing of the life 
of Optatus but his book made a lasting impression on the Church 
and more than sufficed to save his name from oblivion. 

The Donatist party *** had arisen in Numidia during the 
reign of Constantine and by Optatus’ day maintained its own 
bishops and churches throughout a great part of northern Africa. 
Its original ground for opposition to the catholic organization was 
the charge that the bishop of Carthage had been among those 
who betrayed the faith under the persecution of Diocletian and 
that he was therefore incompetent to administer the sacraments, 
on which depended the salvation of his flock, and that his suc- 
cessors, who had received their ordination through him, were 
equally disqualified. Optatus composed a full and painstaking — 
answer to the Donatist contentions, beginning with a review of 
events to show the reprehensible and unwarranted character of 
their schism at the start, passing on to urge the immediate im- 
portance of unity under the leadership of Rome and finally refut- 
ing in detail the argument that the efficacy of sacraments de- 
pended ever in any way upon the worthiness of the administrant. 
The Roman church had insisted for over a century that baptism 
in the name of the Trinity was valid, even when bestowed by 
heretics.’ Optatus was the first, however, to put into definite 
and concise form the ‘‘ opus operatum ”’ theory for all sacraments 
alike. ‘‘The sacraments are holy through themselves, not 
through men . . . it is God who cleanses, not the man.” **° 

124 For some account of the rise of the Donatist schism, vide infra, pp. 450— 
454, 463-467. 


128 Infra, pp. 394, 395, 421, 466. 
126 De Schismate Donatistarum, V, 4. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION III 


In the second book of this treatise, while pressing his point 
that the Donatists should admit the superior authority of the 
catholic Church and tthe See of Peter, Optatus makes one asser- 
tion more sweeping than any we have found upon the subject 
hitherto. Not only, he says, was Peter ‘head of the apostles ” 
and the first bishop of Rome, but his bishopric at Rome was the 
first to be established anywhere in the Church. It was the orig- 
inal episcopate. The claim, however, was excessive even for that 
credulous age. It violated such widely accepted ideas as those 
of the bishopric of James the apostle at Jerusalem**’ and of 
Peter’s foundation of the bishopric at Antioch. It was not taken 
up for repetition *** and Jerome’s version of the offices of Peter 
was adopted instead. 


For Optatus see particularly the histories of dogma, e.g., A. Harnack, 
History of Dogma (trans. by N. Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 1897-1901), 
Vol. V, pp. 42-48. On the Donatist platform, see L. Duchesne, Le Dossier 
du Donatisme in Melanges d’Archaeologie et d’Histoire (Paris, 1890), pp. 
5890-650. 


Optatus, De Schismate Donatistarum, II, 2-3. Text. Ed. 
by C. Ziwsa, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Lati- 
norum, XXVI, 36-37. 


2 We must note who first established a see and where. 
If you do not know, admit it. If you do know, feel your 
shame. I cannot charge you with ignorance, for you plainly 
know. It is a sin to err knowingly, although an ignorant 
person may be blind to his error. But you cannot deny that 
you know that the episcopal seat *® was established first 
in the city of Rome by Peter and that in it sat Peter, the 


127 Infra, pp. 163, 167, 203. 

128 We have not found this claim repeated. It certainly was not generally 
used even by ardent papal propagandists. Compare, however, the loose phrase in 
the Liberian Catalogue, “blessed Peter instituted the episcopate,” supra, p. 107. 
The implication might be regarded as the same. Cyprian, an African Christian of 
the third century, had used language about the original unity of the episcopate in 
Peter which might have given Optatus the suggestion for his idea. Infra, pp. 

22,328. f 
; 29 The word in this extract translated ‘“‘ seat” is “ cathedra,” 7.e., the magis- 
terial chair of bishop. 


112 THE SEE OF PETER 

head of all the apostles, wherefore he is called Cephas.** 
So in this one seat unity is maintained by everyone, that the 
other apostles might not claim separate seats, each for him- 
self. Accordingly, he who erects another seat in opposition 
to that one is a schismatic and a sinner. 

3 Therefore, Peter was the first to sit in that one seat, 
which is the first gift of the Church.”* To him succeeded 
Linus. Clement followed Linus. Then Anacletus Clem- 
ent... .°’ After Damasus, Siricius, who is our contempo- 
rary, with whom our whole world is in accord by interchange 
of letters in one bond of communion. Do you, if you would 
claim for yourselves a holy church, explain the origin o 
your seat." 


JEROME 


(c. 335-420) 


With Jerome we come again to one of the outstanding per- 
sonalities, like Origen or Tertullian, in early church history. 
Born in Dalmatia, he went for higher education to the provin- 


cial capital of Trier and to Rome. After some pleasant years 


of literary activity in Italy, he undertook, in company with sev- 
eral friends, a tour through Greece and Asia Minor. At Antioch, 
a sudden illness carried off one of the little party and Jerome, 
horror-struck, abandoned the expedition and plunged into the 
Syrian desert to live alone as a hermit for five years. In his 
retirement, he took up the study of Hebrew and resolved to de- 
vote his life thenceforth entirely to the cause of sacred learning. 

In 378, he emerged from the desert and began his chosen 
task of translating the Greek Fathers for the use of the West, 


180 Optatus mistakenly tries to derive the Aramaic name, “ Cephas,” by which 
Peter is sometimes called in the New Testament and which also means “ rock.” 
(Vide supra, pp. 23-24) from the Greek word xeddan, “ kephale,” or “ head,” thus 
making it into an equivalent of the Latin “caput.” ‘Omnium apostolorum caput 
Petrus, unde et Cephas est appellatus.” 

131 The Donatists had a list of the “six gifts” or “notes” of the Church, in 
which the episcopate was the first. 

132 The list of Roman bishops from Peter to Siricius. 

133 Compare this turn of the argument with Tertullian’s De Praescriptione, 32. 
Infra, p. 293. 


Ee Tee aE ee ae eT el 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 113 


where by this time the Greek language had ceased to be gener- 
ally spoken or understood. He turned more than thirty homilies 
of Origen into Latin and prepared his version of the Chronicle 
of Eusebius.*** In 382, he was sent on ecclesiastical business to 
Rome and remained there for two years as counsellor and friend 
to Pope Damasus.**’ A scholar of unrivalled reputation, a fiery 
advocate of the new ideals of monasticism and a favored adviser 
of the bishop, he at first swept Roman Christian society fairly 
off its feet. In time, however, his scorching comments on the life 
of the Roman clergy and his influence over women members of 
the church stirred up jealousy and bitterness. At one period it 
seemed inevitable that he would be elected Damasus’ successor 
but when the moment actually arrived, Siricius, a man of cooler 
temperament, was chosen and Jerome withdrew again to the 
Fast. 

A monastery was founded for him at Bethlehem, near a con- 
vent erected to receive the Roman ladies who followed from 
Italy. There he spent the rest of his life at work. In Rome, his 
attention had been called to the corrupt and discordant state of 
the Latin versions of the Scriptures and he had received a com- 
mission from Damasus to revise and purify the text. Before 
leaving the city he had completed a version of the New Testa- 
ment and Psalms, based upon the Septuagint. This Psalter was 
at once adopted into the Roman liturgy and known thenceforth 
as the Psalterium Romanum. It was employed in all the city 
churches until the sixteenth century and is still used in the reci- 
tation of the canonical hours at the Vatican. On his way to 
Bethlehem, however, Jerome discovered at Caesarea the original 
manuscript of Origen’s Hexapla,* and recognised in it a grade 
of scholarship higher than any he had yet attained. On his 
arrival in Bethlehem, he made a fresh translation of the Psalms 
on the basis of the Hexapla texts. This version was accepted 
first in Gaul and came therefore to be called the Psalterium 
Gallicanum. Later yet, he undertook an entirely new translation 
of the whole Old Testament directly from the Hebrew or Ara- 
maic, as far as it was then available, with the aid of such Jewish 
rabbis as he could find to assist him. A combination of this 

134 Supra, p. 97. 135 Infra, pp. 694-696. 136 Supra, p. 88 


114 THE SEE OF PETER 


edition of the Old Testament, omitting the Psalms, the Psalterium 
Gallicanum, his Roman revision of the New Testament and the 
remaining Apocryphal books in the older, existing Latin texts 
make up the Latin Bible, now known as the Vulgate, which has 
been the authorized version of the Roman church since the 
seventh century.**’ 

Besides carrying further Origen’s work of textual restoration, 
Jerome compiled a series of commentaries on the Scriptures, as 
Origen had done, and translated more of Origen’s writings into 
Latin. His own books show signs of hasty workmanship and 
hurried dictation to amanuenses, but they are none the less re- 
markable for erudition, especially for their profuse citations from 
earlier authors and from Jewish traditional lore. He composed 
also argumentative treatises in defense of particular points of 
doctrine and carried on a wide and animated correspondence 
with his contemporaries of both sexes and every station in life. 
He wrote biographies of the hermit saints, of whom he had heard 
in the Syrian desert, and the first patrology or collection of lives 
of the Christian Fathers, which he called Illustrious Men. This 
last book, composed at Bethlehem, purported to furnish concise 
information regarding everyone who had ever taken part in the 
construction and elucidation of the Christian Scriptures, includ- 
ing Jerome himself. It opened with a life of Peter as the author 
of the epistles bearing his name and the source of the gospel of 
Mark. The material for this life, as well as the allusion to Simon 
Magus, was taken from Eusebius’ History,** a few items, such 
as the episcopal title, the twenty-five-year residence at Rome and 
the burial spot, being added. Jerome may have gleaned the first 
two from the Roman catalogues and he was himself, of course, 
familiar with the tomb at the Vatican. He was, however, too 
sharp a scholar to accept the dates proposed by either Eusebius 
or the Liberian chronologer.**® He worked out his own calcula- 
tion to meet the exigencies of the New Testament narrative and 
the primitive records and with such success that his reckoning 


137 The revision of the Bible text, now in process by the Benedictine Fathers 
at Rome, is an attempt to recover the authentic phraseology of Jerome and to 
clear the Vulgate of the accretions and errors that have crept into it since his day. 

138 Supra, pp. 97, 101; infra, pp. 188-189. 

139 Supra, pp. 105, 107. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION It5 


has been commonly repeated ever since by all who uphold the 
theory of the twenty-five-year episcopate. In fact, Jerome’s life 
of Peter became the convenient and authoritative epitome for 
the West of everything that reputable scholarship had preserved 
or evolved concerning the later career of the apostle. With it, 
the accepted tradition assumed its final shape. 


On Jerome, vide O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (St. Louis, 1908), § 93; 
O. Zoekler in J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopddie fiir protestan- 
tische Theologie und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. VIII, pp. 
42 sqq. Also, P. Largent, Saint Jerome (Paris, 1898); L. Sanders, Etudes 
sur Saint Jerome (Paris, 1903); G. Grutzmacher, Hieronymus (2 vols., 
Leipzig, 1901, and Berlin, 1906); P. de Labriolle, History and Literature 
of Latin Christianity from Tertullian to Boethius (New York, 1925). 


De Viris Illustribus, [and V. Text. Texte und Untersuch- 
ungen, ed. by O. Gebhardt, A. Harnack, C. Schmidt, 
XIV, 6—7, 10. 


I Simon Peter, son of John, of the province of Galilee, of 
the village of Bethsaida, brother of Andrew the apostle, 
and himself chief of the apostles, after his bishopric at 
Antioch and his preaching to the dispersed of the circum- 
cision who believed, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia 
and Bithynia,“° in the second year of the emperor Claud- 
ius, went to Rome to expel Simon Magus “* and occupied 
there the sacerdotal seat for twenty-five years until the last 
year of Nero, that is, the fourteenth.“” By Nero he was 
fastened to a cross and crowned with martyrdom, his head 
downward toward the earth and his feet raised on high, for 
he maintained that he was unworthy to be crucified in the 
same manner as his Lord. 

He wrote two epistles which are called catholic, the 
second of which in the opinion of many is not his, since in 
style it differs from the first. In addition there is ascribed 

140 An allusion to 1 Peter, I, 1. 


141 Ap. 42. On Simon Magus, vide supra, p. 98; infra, pp. 124 ff. 
142 Ap. 67. 


116 THE SEE OF PETER 


to him the Gospel according to Mark, who was his pupil and 
interpreter. But the books, of which one is called his Acts, 
another his Gospel, a third his Preaching, a fourth his 
Apocalypse and a fifth his Judgment,” are rejected along 
with the apocryphal scriptures. 

He was buried at Rome in the Vatican, near the Via 

Triumphalis,“* and is celebrated by the veneration of the 
whole world. 
V [Life of Paul.] .. . Soin the fourteenth year of Nero 
on the same day on which Peter was executed, he | Paul] 
was beheaded at Rome for the sake of Christ and was buried 
on the Via Ostiensis,“*’ in the thirty-seventh year after the 
Lord’s passion. 


Chronicon. Text. Jerome’s Chronicle is published as an 
appendix to that of Eusebius in Eusebius Werke (Die 
griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei 
Jahrhunderte), VII, 179, 185. 


Reign of Claudius **° 
Olympiad 
CCV Peter the apostle, having first founded the 
church of Antioch," is sent to Rome, where he 
preaches the gospel and remains for 25 years as 
bishop of the same city. 
Mark the evangelist, the interpreter of Peter, 
proclaims Christ in Egypt and Alexandria. 
Evodius is ordained first bishop of Antioch. 


143 Infra, pp. 120, 136, 158. 

144 Supra, p. 104, n. 106. 

145 On the fourth century basilica over the reputed tomb of Paul on the Via 
Ostiensis, vide R. A. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 150-158. 

146 The following extract should be compared with the corresponding passage 
from Eusebius’ Chronicle to note Jerome’s alterations. Supra, p. 100. 

147 In his life of Peter on the previous page, Jerome speaks of his “ bishopric ” 
at Antioch. Here he calls Peter the founder of the Antiochene church but Evodius 
the first bishop. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 117 


Reign of Nero 
Olympiad 
CCXI To crown all his other crimes Nero insti- 
tutes the first persecution against the Christians, in 
which Peter and Paul perish gloriously at Rome. 


PRUDENTIUS 


(348-c. 410) 


To end this survey of the development of the tradition of 
Peter at Rome we quote a few lines from the Christian poet 
Prudentius, which picture the Roman church of the year 400, 
with its adornment of rich tombs and colonnaded courts and 
ceremonious rituals regularly performed in honor of its two 
august founders. It is a glimpse of the institution in operation. 
The tradition is not only definitely fixed and located; it is now 
finding expression in terms of solemnity and beauty to shed un- 
dying lustre over the inheritors of Peter’s office and Peter’s 
merits. 

There is little to say of Prudentius himself. He was born in 
348, in Spain, probably at Saragossa, of a distinguished Christian 
family. He held various public offices in his own country until 
at length he was appointed to a high post at the court of Theo- 
dosius. The approach of old age decided him to retire from 
the pomps and distractions of the world in order to pass the rest 
of his time in religious pursuits and save his soul. Early in the 
fifth century, he visited Rome and shortly afterward published 
seven books of poetry on religious topics. The Peristephanon, 
or Crowns, from which our excerpt is taken, contains fourteen 
lyrics in praise of divers Christian martyrs of Rome and Spain. 


On Prudentius, vide T. R. Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Cen- 
tury (Cambridge University Press, 1901), Chap. XI; G. Boissier, La Fin du 
Paganisme (2 vols., 3rd ed., Paris, 1898), Vol. II, pp. 105 sqqg.; A. Ebert, 
Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters in Abendlands (3 vols., 
Leipzig, 1880-1889), Vol. I (2nd ed.), pp. 251-293; F. Thackeray, Transla- 
tions from Prudentius (London, 1890); F. Maigret, Le Poéte Chrétien Pru- 
dence in Science Catholique (Paris, 1903), Vol. XVII, pp. 219 sgq., 303 sqq. 


118 THE SEE OF PETER 


Peristephanon, Hymn XII. On the Passion of Peter and 
Paul. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. LX, 
556-569. A better edition is V. Lanfranchi’s Aurelia Pru- 
dentii Clementis Opera (2 vols., Turin, 1896 and 1902). 


More than their wont men gather and rejoice. Say, friend, 
why? 

All over Rome they hasten and exult in triumph. 

To us is returned the day of the victorious oe of the 
apostles, 

Marked with the blood of noble Peter and Paul. 

The same day, tho’ separated by the space of one full year, 

Saw them both crowned with the lofty wreath of death. 

The marsh on the Tiber, laved by the bordering river, — 

Holds earth consecrated by two trophies 

And saw both the cross and the sword; twice a bloody stream 

Rolled down and flowed over the same grass. 

The sentence fell first upon Peter, doomed by the laws of 
Nero 

To hang suspended from the tall beam. 

But he feared to emulate the majesty of the supreme death 

And to aspire to the glory of the great Master 

And asked that they lift his feet above his prostrate head, 

That with his eyes he might face the base of his cross. 


149 
e 


The Tiber, hallowed on either bank, divides their bones, 
Flowing between the consecrated sepulchres. 
The right shore holds Peter, entombed in a golden shrine, 


Musical with olive trees, murmurous with running brooks. 
150 


148 Prudentius recognized the chronological difficulty of making Peter and Paul 
meet death at the same time. He, like Augustine, solved the dilemma presented 
by the single anniversary date by suggesting that the two apostles died on the 
same day but in different years. Supra, p. 75. 

149 Account of the death of Paul. 

150 Description of the fountain and colonnade before the basilica of St. Peter 
and of the basilica of St. Paul. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION IIQ 


Let us turn where the road leads over Hadrian’s bridge.*™* 

Then let us cross again to the river’s left bank. 

The vigilant priest first performs his sacred office beyond 
the Tiber, 

Then returns speedily hither to repeat his vows.*” 


151 The bridge leading to Hadrian’s tomb, now usually known as Castel Sant’ 
Angelo. In Prudentius’ time, as now, this bridge would be the principal way of | 
approach to the Vatican area. 

152 Tt had evidently become the custom for Roman priests to celebrate the 
anniversary by saying two masses, one in each of the two basilicas. Cf. the 
quotation from the Breviarium Romanum, supra, p. 75, n. 35. About this same 
time, Jerome was writing a protest against spending the day in conviviality and 
feasting. Epistolae, XX XI, to Eustochium, who had sent him a present in honor 
of the anniversary. 

In Prudentius’ hymn to St. Lawrence, he again commemorates together the two 
apostles of Rome. 

“ Here reign now the two 
Princes of the apostles. 
He who summons the gentiles, 
He who, holding the seat [cathedram], 
As chief opes wide the gates 
Of eternity, his trust.” 
Peristephanon, II, ll. 461-466. 


PART III 
THE APOCRYPHAL TRADITION 


INTRODUCTION 


The “ accepted ” tradition of Peter’s presence at Rome was, 
as we have already pointed out, at best a meagre one. By itself, 
it threw no light on the manner of his coming, the extent of his 
activities, the provision for the transmission of his powers to his 
successors or the circumstances of his death. Granted the facts 
of his sojourn and martyrdom there and an enthusiastic and 
credulous body of believers, it was inevitable that devout imagi- 
nation should soon set to work around his name, as it did around 
those of his fellow apostles. By the end of the second century, 
we find notices in the writings of Clement of Alexandria* and of 
Serapion of Antioch? of a strange mass of literature professing to 
record the last years of the apostolic band. Serapion rejected 
such works as false on the ground “ that we have not received 
such traditions.” Early in the fourth century, Eusebius * at- 
tempted a classification of these documents, distinguishing be- 
tween merely doubtful writings and others which he rejected alto- 
gether as false, some of these last unobjectionable from the point 
of view of orthodoxy, others yet distinctly dangerous and hereti- 
cal. He included under the ‘final category “ the gospels of Peter, 
Thomas, Matthias, and others besides, and the Acts of Andrew 
and John and the other apostles, which no one belonging to the 
succession of ecclesiastical writers * has ever deemed worthy of 
mention in his works. Furthermore,” he added, “ the character 
of their style is at variance with apostolic usage and both the 
thoughts and the nature of the incidents they describe are so 
completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they plainly 
convict themselves of being the fabrications of heretics.” 


1 Supra, p. 78. 
2 Quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 12, 3. 
3 Eusebius, op. cit., III, 25, 4-7. Supra, pp. 06 ff. 
4 Supra, p. 62, n. 3. 
120 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 121 


About 383, Philaster, bishop of Brescia,’ wrote a disquisition 
on heresies, enumerating one hundred and fifty-six different 
varieties. Chapter 88 of his book opens as follows: ‘‘ There is 
another heresy which uses only the Apocrypha, that is the un- 
recognized writings of the prophets and apostles, . . . And both 
the Manicheans and other similar heretics have Acts of blessed 
Andrew and of John, the blessed evangelist, and also of Paul, 
the blessed apostle. And because in these Acts they performed 
great signs and wonders, so that cattle and dogs and beasts spoke, 
the perverted heretics declare that the souls of men are like 
those of dogs and cattle.”® Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus,’ 
- writing on the same topic at about the same time, described a 
so-called Journey of Peter, which had a Gnostic coloring and 
represented the apostle as abstaining from animal food and re- 
ceiving baptism every day in order to keep his purity unsullied.* 
Yet both Philaster and Epiphanius quoted as authentic a story of 
_ Peter which could have been drawn only from Acts like those 
they condemned.*® 

At Rome, the popes eventually took up the problem of dealing 
with this increasing literature, that sheltered itself behind the 
_ names of the apostles or of their disciples but which the abler 
critics in the Church had once and again pronounced unreliable 
invention. Innocent I (401-417), in a letter intended for general 
circulation, banned as unfit for use the uncanonical works as- 
cribed to Matthew, James the Less, Peter, John, Andrew and 
Thomas.*® The sixth century Jndex attributed to Gelasius I 
(492-496) positively anathematized both them and their au- 
thors.** Yet the popes did not repudiate material borrowed from 
such works by borrowers who themselves were orthodox and who 
turned it to commendable account. 

It is clear, nevertheless, both from these definite statements 

5 Infra, pp. 184, 185. 

8 Diversarum Hereseon Liber or De Heresibus, 88. 

7 Infra, p. 185. 

8 Adversus Haereses, XXX, 15. 

® Compare Eusebius and Jerome, who both reject the apocryphal Acts of 
Peter and yet say that Peter came to Rome to contend with Simon Magus. Supra, 
Pp. 115; infra, p. 180. 


10 Epistolae, VI, 13, Ad Exuperium. 
11 Epistola de Recipiendis et Non Recipiendis Libris, V (ed. Dobschiitz). 


122 THE SEE OF PETER 


and from the failure of the earliest scholars to draw largely 
from these documents that they were at first placed in a different 
class from the scanty fragments we have already reviewed, which 
recorded the “received ” tradition of Peter’s life and death at 
Rome. As one turns the pages of these apocryphal Acts, Gos- 
pels, Apocalypses and didactic tracts, one is struck with the jus- 
tice of Eusebius’ strictures. Their character, even when not 
heretical, is indeed “‘at variance with apostolic usage.” ‘The 
“‘received”” or, as it may be called, the legitimate tradition, 


although in time it annexed various inconsistent and improbable — 


details, never descended to the level of the utterly preposterous 
and fantastic. The apocryphal accounts, on the other hand, of 
Peter’s deeds at Rome leaped at once beyond all bounds of-sober 


credibility. They may have concealed a modicum of fact be- 


neath the fiction, but the fiction so far exceeded and distorted 
the fact that it is hopeless now to try to disentangle one from 
the other. They are simply an expression of naive faith and 
an ambition either to glorify the great apostle personally by 
attributing to him a showy and inconsequent series of magical 
tricks and marvels, or to justify an unorthodox sect like the 
Gnostic by representing him as an advocate of its doctrines, or 
to exalt the episcopal office by depicting him as the fountainhead 
of its authority. 

None the less, this literature cannot be overlooked by one 
who aims to comprehend the growth of papal prestige. Concep- 


tions founded upon it and incidents borrowed from it were in 


time accepted by most of the influential writers of Roman 
Christendom, even by those who like Eusebius or Jerome fully 
realized that the literature as a whole was a web of falsehood. 
In particular, the figure of Simon Magus, once installed at Rome, 
could never be entirely exorcised, nor could Peter be deprived of 
the renown of being the first mighty victor over heresy as em- 
bodied in Simon’s person. In fact, it is difficult to name one of 
the Fathers after the third century who does not sometime allude 
to that famous story. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and others, 
whom we cite below, could none of them rid themselves alto- 
gether of the impression it made upon them. It did not con- 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 123 


tradict the “‘ accepted ” tradition but, rather, supplemented and 
illumined it. It lit up splendidly the obscurity of Peter’s last 
days and raised him to a magnificent position as deliverer as well 
as teacher of the Church. It appeared to find support in the un- 
impeachable testimony of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. How 
could anyone help admitting that some features of it might be 
true, although so much was unquestionably erroneous? Popular 
opinion never saw an objection to any part and rapidly elevated 
Peter to a place high above Paul, who, in spite of all his merits, 
had never led in so spectacular a combat with sorcery.’* The 
protests of the few older historians went unregarded. Even after 
the popes forbade the use of spurious Scriptures, the story of 
Peter and Simon continued to circulate in varying forms and to 
heighten the universal esteem for the prince of the apostles. 
The so-called Letter of Clement to James ** was not blacklisted. 
In the ninth century, it stood at the head of an ostensibly official 
collection of papal decretals.** In the fourteenth century, an 
enlightened scholar like Petrarch pointed out the stone stained 
with Simon’s wicked brains.*® In our own day, we find our- 
selves loath to discard the Quo Vadis story *® and a bit of the 
Clementine romance survives, perhaps, in curiously altered guise 
as the germ of the legend of Faust.*’ All this could not fail to 
invest with additional glamour the scene of Peter’s triumph and 
the person of his successor. 

The origins of this branch of apocryphal literature are singu- 
larly complex. To begin with, there existed, as we have said, 
throughout the early, uncritical Christian community a natural 
tendency to supplement the scanty information furnished by the 

12 For examples of familiar allusion to Peter as conqueror over Simon Magus, 
one by a fourth century papal envoy, the other, a little later, by a writer on the 
practice of fasting at Rome, vide infra, pp. 563, 195. 

13 Infra, pp. 163-165. 

14 The so-called Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. 

15 Epistola ad Philippum de Vitriaco. Francesco Vanni’s painting of Simon’s 
fall is now in St. Peter’s cathedral. 

16 Sienkiewycz’ novel Quo Vadis is one modern version which has had a wide 
circulation in several languages. In May, 1924, an opera entitled Nerone, by the 
composer Boito, was produced at Milan, the theme of which was the struggle of 
Simon Magus to obtain ascendancy over the emperor and destroy the Christians. 

17 Faustus, Clement’s father, is described as one who abandoned everything, 


his family included, to devote himself to astrological science. Peter cures him of 
this over-weening passion for knowledge. 


124 THE SEE OF PETER 


New Testament and authentic tradition with imaginative and 
detailed descriptions of the apostles’ latter days and miracles in 
various regions of the world. Local pride in many instances de- 
manded an apostolic founder for a particular church. The well- 
known tale of James of Compostella is an illustration of how 
far an apostle might be made to wander before he was finally 
allowed to sink into his tomb. As early as the beginning of the 
second century, such legends were springing up. Peter himself 
was duly credited with a Gospel, a Preaching, an Apocalypse 
and a Journey, all treating of his career before his arrival in 
Rome. These, accordingly, we shall now pass over without more 
consideration. 

The name of one man, however, already associated with Peter 
in the Acts of the Apostles, became before the end of the second 
century the starting-point of a special legend. Simon, the sor- 
cerer of Samaria, or Simon Magus, figures in the eighth chapter 
of the Acts as one who had persuaded his own people that he 
was “the great power of God,” but who was converted by the 
preaching of Philip and later rebuked sternly by Peter for offer- 
ing to buy with money the power of conferring the Holy Ghost.** 
In the New Testament narrative, Simon is overcome by the re- 
buke, asks the apostles’ prayers that he may escape punishment 
and thenceforth disappears from the history. But the mysteri- 
ous sorcerer convicted of sin by the superior might of an apostle 
was a tempting subject for speculation, especially when other 
writings of the period furnished hints of a possible after-career. 
Josephus, speaking of the procurator Felix, mentions a magician 
called Simon, who helped Felix entice Drusilla, the wife of Azizeis, 
away from her husband.*® Josephus’ Simon was a Jew, a native 
of Cyprus, not a Samaritan, and was in the field some years after 


Peter had his encounter with Simon of Samaria. Simon was a 


common name and the profession of magic not rare in those days 
and in that region, but one man was soon confused with the 
other. 


18 Acts, VIII, 9-24. The offense of trying to buy spiritual gifts with money 
has since been called simony. As the first simoniac, Simon Magus was placed by 
Dante in the eighth circle of the Inferno. Canto XIX 

19 Josephus, Antiquitates, XX, 7, 2. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 125 


The next step brought Simon to Rome. Justin Martyr, who 
wrote his First Apology about 140, described therein a statue 
erected in the city to one Simon, a Samaritan from a village 
called Gitta, the founder of a new religion, who, he said, had 
come to the capital in the reign of Claudius Caesar and received 
the honors of a god.” Irenaeus, forty years later, repeated 
Justin’s story with the added touch that this was the Simon who 
had been abashed by Peter and had “set himself eagerly to con- 
tend against the apostles.” ** He proceeded to identify this 
Simon of Samaria with a Simon reputed to be the founder of 
a primitive form of Hellenistic or Gnostic theosophy, which was 
actually introduced into Rome at the close of the first century, 
and was for a time a formidable rival to the young church. The 
Simonian heresy was confounded with the teaching of Simon 
Magus as reported in the book of Acts. Finally, the historian 
Suetonius, in his account of the reign of Nero, mentioned a charla- 
tan who had attempted during the celebration of games in Nero’s 
amphitheatre to fly into the air and had fallen and been dashed 
to pieces near the imperial box.*” ‘To someone now came the 
ingenious idea that the unknown charlatan and the sorcerer of 
Samaria were the same person. The elements of a telling story 
were by this time at hand. A wizard, famous and powerful at 
home, comes to Rome propagating a pernicious heresy and en- 
thralling the inhabitants until they set up his statue as that of 
a divinity, but finally perishes in a feat of impious audacity. 
It only remained to bring Peter, the author of the wizard’s first 
discomfiture in Samaria, upon the scene of his fatal catastrophe 
at Rome and to ascribe that catastrophe to Peter’s agency. The 
outlines of the great romance were then complete. 

A legend like this would make, of course, an instant appeal 
as pure story. In addition, a motive less obvious than any we 
have yet suggested may at first have played some part in its 
composition and wide circulation. As the Tiibingen school of 
New Testament criticism has pointed out, traces of an antago- 
nism on the part of Jewish Christians and the more conserva- 
tive apostles toward Paul and the liberal type of gentile Chris- 


20 Infra, pp. 128, 130, for text and explanation of Justin’s error. 
21 Infra, p. 131. 22 Infra, p. 130. 


126 THE SEE OF PETER 


tianity which he fathered are manifest in the New Testament 
and here and there in the writings of the primitive age of the 
Church.” Even Irenaeus could say that in his day there were 
Christians who would not call Paul an apostle.** Whether our 
legend was once meant to portray Paul himself under the cloak 
of Simon Magus as the enemy of the Church, whom Peter had 
pursued and overthrown, or whether Peter was merely celebrated 
as outrivalling Paul in good works, accomplishing in Paul’s ab- 
sence more than he had ever done, the oldest version which we 
possess does actually show Peter standing as a solitary hero, 
facing unaided the assaults of the powers of darkness and sav- 
ing the Roman church from destruction. The same Jewish or 
Ebionitic coloring may be discerned again in the Clementine 
documents, in the deference which Peter is made to pay to James, 
the head of the church at Jerusalem.”” In time, however, the 
Jewish party in the Church became negligible or disappeared and 
the old jealousies and differences which had centered around it 
were forgotten. The simple impulse to magnify the Roman See 
could have free rein and inasmuch as two apostolic deliverers 
are more glorious than one, a fresh version of the legend was 
composed which brought Paul to Peter’s side, though keeping 
him distinctly in the second place.”® 

Other versions of the legend, embellished with new features 
or combined with elements from other apocryphal tales, arose 
from time to time in different parts of the Empire, written in the 
different tongues of the provinces. The few from which we 
give extracts are samples of a multitude that have been lost. 
The heretical versions most obnoxious to orthodox authority 
have naturally vanished altogether, but here and there a stray 
touch of Gnostic dualism may be observed in a document that 
happened to survive. Peter, for example, preaches asceticism 
to the noble Roman ladies and betrays no sign of suffering under 


23 Paul did not receive all the support and comfort he had expected to find 
at Rome. Philippians, I, 15-17; 2 Timothy, IV, 16. The Jewish community was 
very large, probably 10,000 under Tiberius, and the first Roman Christians may 
have been mostly Jews. 

24 Trenaeus, Contra Haereses, III, 15, 1. 

25 Infra, pp. 159, 165. In the Clementines, Peter is also made to utter nemarks 
which undeniably are meant as slurs upon Paul. Vide J. V. Bartlet, Clementine 
Literature, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. 26 Infra, p. 168, 


- THE PETRINE TRADITION 127 
the torture of crucifixion.** One of our texts goes so far as to 
ascribe his death to his interference with the marital relations 
of Roman society.** Others take the more orthodox course of 
attributing it to the emperor’s wrath at the loss of Simon.” 

This apocryphal literature is, as we have intimated, diffuse 
in style and voluminous in bulk, in striking contrast to the scat- 
tered crumbs that make up the “ received ” tradition. We can- 
not here reproduce in full even one of the more important com- 
positions. We have attempted only to indicate the character and 
trend of a few representative narratives and thus to show how 
the figure of Peter was made grandiose and inspiring to the pop- 
ular imagination and the gaps in the “ received ” tradition were 
filled up. The Simon Magus legends and the Clementine letter 
taken together made invaluable propaganda for the rising 
Papacy, at first appealing mainly to the uncritical and unlearned 
believer but subsequently admitted, as a part of history, by the 
gravest Fathers of the Church. 


For fuller discussion and bibliographies on these topics consult St. G. 
Stock, Simon Magus, in Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed., 29 vols., Lon- 
don, 1910-1911); J. V. Bartlet, Clementine Literature, in Encyclopaedia 
Britannica 11th ed.); G. Krueger, History of Early Christian Literature 
(trans. by C. R. Gillet, New York, 1897), passim; A. Harnack, Geschichte 
der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), 
passim; E. Hennecke, Handbuch zur den neutestamentlichen Apokryphen 
(Tiibingen, 1904); R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet (editors), Acta Apostolorum 
Apocrypha (2 vols. in 3, Leipzig, 1891-1903); F. J. A. Hort, Notes Intro- 
ductory to the Study of the Clementine Recognitions (London, 1901); C. 
Guignebert, La Primauté de Pierre (Paris, 1911); A. C. Headlam, Szmon 
Magus, in J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols., New York, tgo1- 
1904); B. Pick, Paralipomena (London, 1908); E. A. W. Budge, Gadla 
Hawaryat, The Contendings of the Apostles (Ethiopic versions of the lives 
and deaths of the apostles), (London, 1899), Vol. II, pp. 7-41, 382-436. 


1. BEGINNINGS OF THE SIMON MAGUS LEGEND 


The following group of extracts from the pagan historian 
Suetonius and from four church writers of the second and early 
third centuries comprises all the material extant on the Roman 
Simon, whoever or whatever he or they may have been, before 


ey Infra, pp. 150, 152, 170, 177, 203, 204. 28 Infra, p. 150. 
29 Infra, pp. 177, 180. 


128 | THE SEE OF PETER 


the emergence of the full-fledged Simon Magus legend. The 
passage from Suetonius refers to an episode of which we have 
no other report than what he gives us. A second-century Chris- 
tian, searching through the history of Nero’s reign for light, 
perhaps, on the circumstances of Peter’s death, might conceiv- 
ably have seized upon this suggestion for the story of Simon’s 
fate. At least, we have no other source for the bizarre idea of 
the aerial flight.*° 

The quotation from the Christian philosopher, Justin Martyr, 
however, is part of an account of a genuine Simon, a Samaritan, 
whom Justin believed to be the founder of one of the curious, 
syncretistic forms of belief, characteristic of the age, which were 
fervently denounced by the Christians. His disciple Menander 
performed feats of magic of which Justin had heard, and taught 
his converts that they would never die. Justin did not identify 
this Simon with the Simon of the Acts but he dated his coming 
to Rome so early that there was no incompatibility of time. In 
point of fact, the heresiarch Simon must have lived a full gener- 
ation later than Justin placed him. Justin gave a short descrip- 
tion of Simon’s peculiar doctrines and inserted a surprising 
statement to the effect that the Romans were so impressed by 
his teaching as to erect a statue to him as a god. Justin him- 
self spent many years in Rome and spoke as if he knew the 
statue in question. For centuries after him there seemed no 
possible way of contraverting his statement. But in 1574, a stone 
pedestal was dug up on the island of the Tiber, bearing the in- 
scription SEMONI DEO SANCIO SACRUM, which offered a clue to 
the mystery. Semo Sancius, otherwise known as Dius Fidius, was 
an ancient Sabine divinity who guarded the sanctity of oaths and 
treaties." It seems now beyond doubt that Justin, like many 
other citizens of the Hellenized Empire, was unacquainted with 
the cults of the old-fashioned, local deities and simply misinter- 
preted the inscription. A comparison with the reading which he 
gives will show that the mistake would not have been difficult 
for a mind historically so uncritical. 

30 Infra, p. 149. 


81 This pedestal, probably the very one seen by Justin, is now in the Vatican 
Museum. Vide R. A. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 104-106. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 129 


Some forty years later, Irenaeus,** in his analysis and refuta- 
tion of the heresies of his time, made a more careful study of the 
Simonian philosophy, drawing evidently from some treatise on 
the subject which he had read. The woman Helen, whom Justin 
had mentioned, Irenaeus explained more fully as the embodi- 
ment of the Divine Thought, even as Simon was of the Supreme 
Power, both having been incarnate from time to time in varying 
guises on the earth. As Simon’s philosophical propositions, how- 
ever, played no real part in the popular legend that was develop- 
ing about him, we omit the discussions of them. Irenaeus also 
alluded to the statue, but as an object of hearsay. Though he 
wrote his book in Rome, he apparently took the statue on Justin’s 
word without any verification of his own eyes. The chief con- 
tribution he made to the legend was his positive assurance that 
the wandering heretic Simon and the New Testament Simon 
were the same, with the corollary that the latter after his rebuke 
by Peter applied himself afresh to magic in order to resist the 
apostles. 

Tertullian ** added nothing to the portrait of Simon’s char- 
acter but made frequent and scathing references to him in his 
writings, basing his judgment on Justin, Irenaeus and the un- 
known source which Irenaeus had used. Bishop Hippolytus,** 
who, about Tertullian’s time, wrote a compendium of heresies, 
described in still greater detail Simon’s philosophic system, draw- 
ing partly from the source just mentioned and partly from a 
book called The Declaration, which purported to be the work 
of Simon himself. At the close, he added that Simon and Peter 
had met and withstood each other on several occasions at Rome, 
and that Simon had finally left the city and died elsewhere. It is 
possible that his account of Simon’s death represents a bit of 
actual Roman tradition as to the heresiarch’s end. 

Other writings of this same general period give further in- 
formation on the course of the Simonian heresy. ‘The Clemen- 
tine romances describe Simon’s earlier preaching in Syria and 
his argumentative encounters with Peter there.*® Origen re- 

32 For further account of Irenaeus, vide infra, pp. 261 ff. 


33 For Tertullian, vide supra, p. 84; infra, p. 261. 
34 For Hippolytus, vide infra, pp. 297-299. 85 Infra, p. 167 and n. 104. 


130 THE SEE OF PETER 


marks upon the decline of Simonian influence in his own day.*® 
But the germs of the legend of the conflict of Simon and Peter 
at Rome, as far as they are now discoverable at all, lie in the 
excerpts given below. 


SUETONIUS 


(fl. c. 95-120) 
De Vita Caesarum, Nero, c. 12. Text. Ed. by J. C. Rolfe 
(The Loeb Classical Library), I, 104. : 


[A description of spectacles performed in Nero’s amphi- 
theatre, near the Campus Martius.] An Icarus at his first 
attempt fell instantly, close to his Nee, s| box, and pet 
tered him with his blood. 


JUSTIN MARTYR 
(dyiG.cr05) 
Apologia Prima, c. 26. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Graeca, VI, 368. A better text is in Apologies, ed. by 
L. Pantigny (Textes et Documents pour V Etude His- 
torique du Christianisme, I. 


There was a Samaritan, Simon, a native of the village 
called Gitta, who in the reign of Claudius Caesar and in 
your royal city of Rome did mighty acts of magic by virtue 
of the craft of the demons operating through him. He was 
regarded as a god and was honored by you as a god with a 
statue, which statue was erected on the river Tiber, between 
the two bridges, and bore this inscription in the Roman 
language: 


SIMONI DEO SANCTO [To Simon, the holy God]. 


And almost all Samaritans and even a few from other nations 

worship him and acknowledge him as the first god. A 

woman named Helen, who went about with him at that time 
86 Origen, Contra Celsum, I, 57. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 131 


and had previously had a stand in a brothel, they call the 
First Thought conceived by him.” 


IRENAEUS 
(c. 130-C. 200) 
Adversus Haereses, I, 23, 1 and 4. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, VII, 670 sqq. 


Simon the Samaritan was that magician of whom Luke, 
the disciple and follower of the apostles, says: “‘ But there 
was a certain man, Simon by name,” . . . [Quotation from 
Acts, VIII, 9-23.| He then, not putting his faith in God 
one whit the more, set himself eagerly to contend against 
the apostles in order that he himself might appear to be a 
wonderful being and he applied himself with still more zeal 
to the study of every magic art that he might the better 
dazzle the masses of mankind. Such was his course in the 
reign of Claudius Caesar, by whom furthermore he is said 
to have been honored with a statue on account of his 
magic. ... (Résumé of Simon’s teachings. ) 

They also have an image of Simon fashioned after the 
likeness of Jupiter and another of Helen in the style of 
Athene and they worship them.** Finally they have a name 
derived from Simon, the author of their sacrilegious doc- 
trines, and are called Simonians. 


TERTULLIAN 
(c. 160-c. 235) 


Apologeticus adversus Gentes, c. 13. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Latina, I, 402. 


But when you adore Larentina, a public prostitute, — 
I could wish that it might at least have been Lais or Phryne, 


37 Justin speaks of Simon again in the same Apology, c. 56, and in his Dialogue 
with Trypho, c. 120, but gives no more particulars of his life. 
38 Cf. Hippolytus, infra, p. 133. 


L322 THE SEE OF PETER 


— among your Junos and Ceres and Dianas, when you in- 
stall in your Pantheon Simon Magus and bestow on him a 
statue and the title of Holy God,’ when you make a notori- 
ous court page a god of the sacred assembly,” your ancient 
deities, although they are themselves in reality no better, 
will indeed consider themselves insulted by you. 


De Praescriptione Haereticorum, c. 3 3 . Text. Ed. by P. de 
Labriolle (Textes et Documents pour l Etude Historique 
du Christianisme), IV, 72. 


And the doctrines of Simon’s sorcery, which inculcated 
a worship of angels, were themselves reckoned among the 
idolatries and condemned by the apostle Peter in Simon’s 
own person. 
HIPPOLYTUS 


(d. 236) 
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium, VI, 2 and 15. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XVI, Pt. 3, 3206-3208, 3226. 


It now seems fitting to explain the theories of Simon, 
a native of Gitta, a village of Samaria, and we shall likewise 
prove that his successors, taking their pattern from him, 
have endeavored to promulgate similar views under a 
change of name. This Simon was an adept in sorcery and 
after making a mockery of many and perpetrating his vil- 
lainy, partly by means of the art of Thrasymedes, in the 
way we have already described, and partly through the 
assistance of demons, he tried to set himself up as a god. 
But the man was a fraud and full of folly and the apostles 
rebuked him in the Acts.... [A lengthy account of 
Simon’s philosophy. | : 

So the disciples of this Magus celebrate magical rites 
and employ incantations and resort to love spells and charms 


89 Sancti Dei, words taken from Justin’s inscription. 
40 A reference probably to Antinous. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 133 


and demons, said to be “‘ dream senders,” in order to drive 
distracted whomever they choose. And they also call upon 
beings named Paredroi.“ They have an image of Simon 
fashioned in the likeness of Zeus and one of Helen in the 
form of Athene, and they worship them. And they call the 
one Lord and the other Lady. But if any one, on seeing 
the images of either Simon or Helen, calls them by their 
own names, he is cast out as ignorant of the mysteries.” 
This Simon deceived many in Samaria by his wizardry and 
was rebuked by the apostles and laid under a curse, as it is 
written in the Acts. But he afterwards abjured the faith 
and resumed his aforesaid practices, until he arrived at 
Rome and fell in with the apostles. And although he was 
deceiving many by his sorceries, Peter repeatedly withstood 
him. At last he betook himself to . . .° and continued to 
teach, sitting under a plane tree. Finally, when he was on 
the point of being exposed, he said, in order to gain time, 
that if he were buried alive he would rise again the third 
day. Accordingly he ordered a grave to be dug by his 
disciples and directed that he should be laid therein. Then 
they obeyed his command, but he remained in his grave 
until this day, for he was not the Christ. 


2. THE LEGEND OF PETER AND SIMON 
(180-220) 


The last sentences of Hippolytus’ story of Simon Magus 
would show us, if we had no other evidence, that there were tales 
already current of contests between Simon and the apostle Peter 
at Rome, concluding with Simon’s discomfiture and retirement. 
How early these tales had begun to circulate we have no means 
of learning, nor how far they included reminiscences of actual 

41 Familiar spirits. 

42 This sentence shows that the Simonians denied that they worshipped their 


founders. 
43 Some words are missing here from the original manuscript. 


134 THE SEE OF PETER 


occurrences. ‘The central idea of an encounter between Peter 
and Simon was, of course, absolutely fictitious. The Simon 
Magus of the Acts was never in Rome, so far as we are aware. 
The Simon of Gitta, whom Justin Martyr had in mind, may or 
may not have been the same as the founder of the Simonian 
sect. The latter, however, certainly belonged to the close of the 
first century rather than to the middle and probably did not see 
Rome until twenty-five years, at least, after the apostle’s death. 
The romantic conception of the master of black art pitted against 
the disciple of Christ sprang entirely from such chance sugges- 
tions as have already been noted in the literature of the time.** 
But once started, the romance was bound to grow with speed and 
gather color and episode, jumbling in one extraordinary medley 
scraps of remembered incident or detail and flights of ingenuous 
fancy. The facts of Simon the heretic’s death away from Rome 
and of the expectation of his followers that he would rise again 
were soon woven into it. The fact of Peter’s crucifixion was 
worked up to form a moving close, although the connection of 
his martyrdom with the preceding incidents was at first a little 
lame. It was not until considerably later that a clever remodel- 
ling of the legend brought Peter’s death into organic relation with 
the central plot by representing it as a consequence of his vic- 


tory over Simon.*® The whole story was given a religious tone _ 


by Peter’s addresses and prayers, which had sometimes a touch 
of rude eloquence. It made an instant appeal to simple-minded, 
uncritical folk, such as composed the bulk of the Church. 

The date of the first appearance of the completed story can- 
not be fixed with any precision. The document which we give 
here in abridged form is the earliest version of it known to be in 
existence. Lipsius, who edited the text from which we translate, 
put the date of its composition about the year 165, but Harnack, 


Erbes and other scholars incline to the opinion that it belongs — : 


between 180 and 220. There must, to begin with, have been 
shorter and simpler versions, older by some years. One, at least, 
was definitely Gnostic in character and supplied the ascetic fea- 
tures noticeable in ours. The place of composition is also a 


44 On this subject vide supra, pp. 124, 125; 128, 129. 
45 Infra, p. 177. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 135 


matter of doubt. Our author displays an acquaintance with the 
apocryphal Acts of John and of Paul, which were both probably 
composed in Asia Minor during the second century. He shows 
also some slight knowledge of the city of Rome, though whether 
it is more than might be expected of any well informed citizen 
of the Empire it is hard to say. Hippolytus’ words are proof 
that stories of this sort were going about in Rome soon after the 
year 200. If our version was first written in Greek in Asia, it 
was speedily brought to Rome and translated into Latin and the 
clumsy play upon the words “ Petrus ” and “ paratus,” possible 
only in a Latin text, was introduced. 

The most complete text now extant is the crude Latin one 
called Actus Petri cum Simone or Codex Vercellensis from the 
Library at Vercellae where it was discovered. Two fragments of 
Greek texts have been found and portions of translations into 
Coptic, Slavonic, Arabic and Ethiopic, testifying to the story’s 
wide popularity. Our translation is from the Latin, collated 
toward the end with the Greek fragment which covers the ac- 
count of Peter’s crucifixion. 


For further information on this subject, see F. H. Chase, Simon Peter, 
in J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols., New York, 1901-1904), 
Vol. III. Other important discussions are contained in the Prolegomena to 
the edition of the text of R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet; C. Schmidt, Die 
Alten Petrusakten in Zusammenhang der apokryphen Apostellitteratur in 
O. Gebhardt, A. Harnack, C. Schmidt (editors), Texte und Untersuchungen 
zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig, 1882—), New Series, 
Vol. IX; Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, Vol. 117, pp. 
450 sgqg.; Th. Zahn, Forsuchungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen 
Kanons (2 vols., Erlangen, 1881-1883), Vol. II, 841 sqq.; C. Erbes, Petrus 
nicht in Rom sondern in Jerusalem gestorben, in Zeitschrift fur Kirchen- 
geschichte (Gotha, 1901), Vol. XXII, pp. 1-147, 161-232; M. R. James, 
Apocrypha Anecdota, 2nd Series, Vol. XXIV, sqq.; F. Legge, Forerunners 
and Rivals of Christianity (Cambridge, 1916). An English translation of 
the entire Acts is in B. Pick, Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew 
and Thomas (Chicago, 1909), and in M. R. James, edition of the Apocryphal 
New Testament (Oxford, 1924). For a recent account of other Oriental 
apocryphal Acts and Martyrdoms of Peter, see F. Haase, Apostel und Evan- 
gelisten in den orientalischen Uberlieferungen (Miinster, 1922), pp. 202 sqq. 


136 THE SEE OF PETER 


THE ACTS OF PETER WITH SIMON 


Actus Petri cum Simone; also called Actus Vercellenses. 
Text. Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. Py Riis 
Lipsius and M. Bonnet, I, 45-103. 


[Paul in Rome has a vision bidding him go to Spain. 
During his absence, Simon Magus enters the city, flying over 
the gate. |: 

4... And the brethren in turn were greatly perturbed 
because Paul was not at Rome, nor Timothy nor Barnabas,” 
for they had been sent by Paul into Macedonia, and there 
was no one to hearten them save such as had recently been 
catechumens. And Simon vaunted himself increasingly with 
his deeds and some men in their daily talk called Paul a 
sorcerer, some even openly. And all the vast multitude 
which had been grounded in the faith abandoned it, except 
Narcissus,’ the presbyter, and two women in the hospice 
of the Bithynians and four who were no longer able to leave 
their homes but remained shut up day and night, giving 
themselves to prayer and beseeching the Lord that Paul 
might quickly return or that some other one might visit his 
servants, seeing that the devil with his wickedness had de- 
stroyed them. 


5 And while they mourned and fasted, God instructed 


Peter in Jerusalem. For twelve years being now fulfilled 
since the Lord had called him,* Christ revealed to him a 
vision, saying to him: “ Peter, that Simon whom thou didst 


46 Paul at one time sent Timothy on a mission from Rome. Philippians, I, 
19. He never speaks of Barnabas as at Rome but one tradition connected Barnabas 
with the first preaching of Christianity in the city. Infra, p. 166. 

47 The name may be taken from Romans, XVI, 11. The Narcissus mentioned 
by Paul was probably the secretary and influential friend of the emperor Claudius. 

48 An early tradition existed to the effect that the apostles had been com- 
manded by Christ to wait twelve years in Jerusalem before setting out to preach 
abroad. Clement of Alexandria quotes it from the apocryphal Preaching (Kjpvypa) 
of Peter, which was composed about the beginning of the second century. Stro- 
mata, V, 4. A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. I, 
D-.45) ite de 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 137 


proclaim a sorcerer and didst drive out from Judaea has 
again forestalled thee at Rome. And shortly thou shalt hear 
of it, for Satan, whose power Simon claims to be, has by 
his craft and energy destroyed all who believed in me. But 
do not delay; tomorrow go |to Caesarea| and there thou 
shalt find a ship in readiness, sailing to Italy; and within a 
few days I shall impart to thee my grace, which has no 
bitterness.”” Then Peter, admonished by this vision, related 
it straightway to the brethren, saying: “It is needful for 
me to journey to Rome to expel the foe and adversary of 
the Lord and of our brethren.” And he went down to 
Caesarea and immediately embarked upon a ship... . 

7 And the rumour spread through the city to the dis- 
persed brethren that it was reported that Peter had come 
to Rome on account of Simon, that he might prove him a 
seducer and persecutor of the good. Then the whole multi- 
tude gathered together, that they might see the apostle of 
the Lord laying the foundation in Christ. And on the first 
Sabbath, when the multitude had assembled to see Peter, 
Peter began to speak in a loud voice: . .. [Exhortation 
to repent. | 

8 And the brethren repented and implored Peter to 
drive out Simon, who said he was the power of God and 
who was staying in the house of Marcellus, the senator,” 
whom he had beguiled with his enchantments. And they 
said: ‘‘ Believe us, brother Peter; no man was nobler among 
men than this Marcellus. All the widows who hoped in 
Christ had him for refuge; all the orphans were fed by him. 
Nay more, brother, all the poor called Marcellus their patron 
and his house was named the house of the strangers and the 
poor. ... Now this Marcellus is enraged and repents of 
his charity, saying: ‘So much wealth wasted for so long a 


49 Vide 1 Corinthians III, 11. 

50 Harnack thinks that this “‘ Senator Marcellus,” who plays such a prominent 
part, may have been an historical character. A. Harnack, op. cit., Vol. Il, p. 43, 
Nn. 4. 


138 THE SEE OF PETER 


time and I in my folly believed that God knew of it and so 
I spent it!’ Thus if any stranger comes to the door of his 
house he will beat him with a lash and order him driven 
away, saying: ‘Would I had never spent so much money 
on the impostors!’ And he utters other blasphemies. . . .” 

g ... And the brethren asked Peter to contend with 


Simon and not to suffer him longer to delude the people. 


And Peter without delay left the synagogue and went to the 
house of Marcellus, where Simon was staying. And great 
throngs followed him. When he came to the house, he called 
the porter and said to him: “ Go, say to Simon: ‘ Peter, 
through whom you fled from Judaea, awaits you at the 
door.’” And the porter answered and said to Peter: 
“Whether you are Peter, I know not, my lord. But I am 
under instruction, for he saw you yesterday enter the city 
and said to me: ‘ Whether by day or by night, at whatever 
hour he comes, say that I am not in the house!’ ”’ And Peter 
replied to the young man: ‘“‘ You have spoken aright, because 
you were compelled by him to say this.” And Peter turned 
to the people who followed him and said: “ You shall now 
behold a great and wonderful portent.”’ And observing a 
large dog fastened with a heavy chain, Peter drew near and 
released him. And the dog, being released, assumed the 
voice of a man and said to Peter: ‘‘ What will you bid me do, 
servant of the ineffable and living God? ”? And Peter said 
to him: “ Go in and say to Simon, in the midst of his com- 
panions: ‘ Peter says to you: “‘ Come out into an open place, 
since for your sake have I come to Rome, you wicked man 
and deceiver of simple souls.” ’”’ And the dog bounded from 
the spot and into the house and sprang into the midst of 
those who were with Simon and lifting up his forepaws, said 
with a loud voice: ‘“‘ Simon! Peter, the servant of Christ, 
who stands at the door, says to you, ‘ Come out into an open 
place, for on your account have I come to Rome, most wicked 
of men and seducer of simple souls.’”” And when Simon 


ee ee 


SE Oe ee ome 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 139 


heard this and saw the incredible sight, he paused in the 
words with which he was seducing his companions and they 
were all amazed. 

10 But Marcellus at the sight came out of the door and 
cast himself at Peter’s feet and said: ‘‘ Peter, I embrace 
your feet, holy servant of the holy God. I have sinned 
exceedingly; punish not my sins, if you have the true faith 
of Christ whom you preach, if you are mindful of his com- 
mands, to hate no one, to be cruel to no one, as I have 
heard them from Paul, your fellow apostle; ... He 
[Simon] but now prevailed upon me to erect to him a statue 
with the inscription: ‘To Simon, the youthful god”’" .. . 
And this Simon has said that you, Peter, were faithless and 
doubted on the water.” And I have heard that he [Christ | 
also said: ‘ They who are with me have not understood 
me.’** Therefore, if you, upon whom he laid his hands, 
whom he chose, in whose presence he wrought his miracles, 
doubted, I have your example for my penitence and seek 
refuge in your prayers. .. .”°* Then Peter said in a loud 
voice: ‘‘ Thine, our Lord, is the glory and the honor, God 
omnipotent, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! ‘To thee be 
praise and glory and blessing forever and ever. Amen! 
Since now thou hast strengthened and established us fully 
in the sight of all who see, holy Lord confirm Marcellus and 
send thy peace on him and on his house this day. . . .” 

11 With these words Peter embraced Marcellus and 
turned to the throng who stood by and saw one in the throng 
who smiled and in whom was an evil demon. And Peter 
said to him: ‘‘ Whoever you are who laughed, show yourself 


51 Simoni Iuveni Deo. A garbled version of the inscription mentioned by 
Justin Martyr. Supra, p. 130. 

52 Matthew, XIV, 28-31. 

53 Cf. Matthew XV, 15-17; XVI, 8-11; Mark VII, 18; VIII, 17-21. These 
exact words are in an extra-canonical saying mentioned by B. Pick, Paralipo- 
mena, 66. 

54 The appeal made here for a merciful treatment of one who had lapsed from 
faith and Peter’s compassionate response are reasons in favor of dating this version 
of the story at the end of the second century, when the harshness of primitive 
discipline was being mitigated. Infra, pp. 243, 299, 310. 


140 THE SEE OF PETER 


openly before us all!” And hearing this, the young man 
rushed into the atrium of the house and shouted aloud and 
cast himself against the wall and said: “ Peter, there is a 
great struggle between Simon and the dog that you sent to 
him, for Simon is saying to the dog: * Tell him that I am 
not here.’ And the dog is saying to him more than you 
charged him and after he has performed the mystery with 
which you charged him, he will die at your feet.” Then 
Peter said: “‘ Demon, whoever thou art, in the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ come out of the youth and do him no 
harm; show thyself to all who stand here.” And hearing 
this, the young man rushed forward and, laying hold of a 
great marble statue that stood in the atrium of the house, 
shattered it with kicks. And it was a statue of Caesar. At 
that sight Marcellus beat his forehead and said to Peter: 
“A great crime has been committed and if it be reported 
to Caesar by a spy, he will punish us heavily.” But Peter 
said to him: “I see you are not in the state in which you 
were a short time since, for you said you were ready to spend 
the whole of your substance to save your soul. But if you 
are truly penitent and believe in Christ with all your heart, 
take flowing water in your hands and pray the Lord and in 
his name sprinkle the fragments of the statue and it will be 
restored as before.”” Then Marcellus, nothing doubting but 
believing with all his heart, before he took the water lifted 
up his hands and said: “I believe in thee, Lord Jesus 
Christ, . . .” And he sprinkled water upon the stones and 
the statue became whole... . 

12 But Simon in the house said to the dog: “ Tell Peter 
that I am not in the house.” And the dog in the presence 
‘of Marcellus said to him: “ Most wicked and impudent of 
men, the enemy of all who live and believe in Jesus Christ, 
a dumb animal has been given a human voice and sent to 
you to convict you and openly prove you an impostor. . . .” 
And when the dog had said this, it turned from him and the 


THE PETRINE TRADITION I4I 


crowd followed after it, leaving Simon alone. The dog re- 
turned to Peter, who was seated with the multitude that 
they might look upon his face, and the dog told what it had 
done with Simon. And the dog said to the messenger and 
apostle of the true God: “ Peter, you shall have a great 
struggle against Simon, the enemy of Christ, and of his 
servants; but many whom he has seduced you shall restore 
to the faith. Therefore you shall receive from God the 
recompense of your labor.”” And when the dog had said this, 
it fell down at the feet of the apostle Peter and gave up the 
ghost.” And the throng beheld with great amazement the 
dog speaking and some threw themselves at Peter’s feet, but 
others said: “‘ Show us another sign that we may believe in 
you as a minister of the living God; for Simon did many 
signs in our presence and for that reason we followed after 
him.” : 

13... [Peter makes a smoked fish swim like one 
alive.“| Then many followed him for that sight and be- 
lieved on the Lord and they met day and night in the house 
of Narcissus, the presbyter. And Peter expounded to them 
the writings of the prophets and the words and deeds of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

14 And Marcellus was daily established through the 
signs which he saw done by Peter with the grace of Jesus 
Christ granted unto him. And Marcellus repaired to his own 
house, to Simon, who was sitting in the dining-hall. And he 
cursed him and said to him: “ |Denunciation of Simon].” 
Then Simon was severely beaten and driven from the house 
and he went quickly to the house whither Peter was re- 
turned. And he stood before the house of Narcissus, the 
presbyter, at the door, and called out: “Lo, here am I, 


55 In the Acts of Thomas, c. 41, the episode of the speaking ass ends in the 
same way, with the animal’s death. B. Pick, Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, 
John ..., pp. 260-262. 

56 The reader will observe the unethical character of many of these signs and 
Jmiracles, mere exhibitions of wizard magic superior to its rival. 


142 THE SEE OF PETER 


Simon! Come down, therefore, Peter, and I will prove that. 
you have put faith in a Jew and the son of a carpenter.” 

15 Thereupon it was reported to Peter that Simon had 
said this. And Peter sent out to him a woman with a suck- 
ing child, saying to her: “‘ Go down quickly and you shall 
see a man asking for me. But it is not for you to answer 
him; keep silence and hear what the babe whom you hold 
will say to him.” So the woman went down. And the child 
whom she suckled was seven months old. And it received 
the voice of a man and spoke to Simon: “ O hateful to God 
and men, O destroyer of truth and baneful seed of corrup- 
tion! ... But against your will on the Sonne Sabbath 
another shall bring you to the forum of Julius ” that it may 
be proved upon you what you are. ... And now I speak 
my last word: Jesus Christ says to you: ‘ Keep silence under 
the power of my name and go out from Rome until the 
coming Sabbath.’” Then he immediately fell speechless 
and was constrained to go out from Rome until the Sabbath 
and abode in a stable. And the woman returned with her 
infant to Peter and related to him and the other brethren 
what it had said to Simon. And they magnified the Lord 
who had revealed these things to men. 

16 [Peter has a vision of Christ encouraging him for the 
contest. | 

17 and 18 [Peter tells the brethren how in Judaea he 
recovered the jewels of a woman named Eubola, stolen from 
her by the arts of Simon. | 

19 [Marcellus purifies his house for a gathering place. ] 

20 Then Peter entered the house [of Marcellus] and 
saw one of the older women blind in her sight and her 
daughter holding her hand and leading her into the house 
of Marcellus. And Peter said to her: ‘‘ Come hither, mother! 
Yesterday Jesus gave you his right hand and through him 


57 Appian, De Bello Civili, II, 102, says that the Forum of Julius was espe- 
cially reserved for hearing disputes and was closed to trade. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 143 


we have light unapproachable, which darkness does not ob- 
scure. He says to you through me: ‘ Open your eyes and 
see and walk alone!’” And straightway the blind woman 
saw Peter laying his hand upon her. And Peter went into 
the dining-hall and saw the gospel being read. And rolling 
it up, he said: ‘‘ Men who believe and hope in Christ, . . .” 

21 |Other blind women ask to have their sight restored. 
A dazzling light appears filling the place and some see an 
old man, some a young man, some a boy touching their eyes 
and their sight returns. | 

22 [All spend the night together in preparation for the 
Sabbath. |: 

23 Then there gathered together the brethren [in the 
forum], all who were in Rome, each with a gold piece 
occupying a seat.” And there were assembled also the 
senators and the prefects and the magistrates. And Peter 
came and stood in the midst. They all cried out: “ Show 
us, Peter, who is your god or what is the majesty that has 
given you your confidence! Be not unkind to the Romans; 
they are lovers of the gods. We have the feats of Simon; 
let us have yours also! Convince us now, both of you, 
whom we ought to believe!” And as they said this, Simon 
appeared. He stood confused beside Peter and for the first 
time looked upon him. Then, after a long silence, Peter 
said: “‘ Men of Rome, be true judges between us. For I 
say I have believed in the living and true God. ... [He 
relates Simon’s discomfiture in Judaea.| Peter is my name, 
because the Lord Christ deigned to call me to be on patrol °° 


58 The gold for the seats had been furnished by Marcellus, who was generous 
again in his repentance. 

59 A feeble attempt to give a new meaning to the name of Peter. ‘‘ My name 
is ‘ Petrus,’ because I was called to be ‘ paratus,’ ” that is, ready or prepared. We 
have used the phrase “ on patrol” in the text in an effort to reproduce in English 
the rough similarity in sound, but there is, of course, no more genuine connection 
between one pair of words than between the other. This play on a chance 
phonetic resemblance would be impossible in Greek and must therefore have been 
the invention of the Latin translator. It is significant chiefly as suggesting that he 
was not acquainted with or saw no significance in the explanation given in our 
Gospel of Matthew for the same name, XVI, 18. Supra, pp. 23-25. Yet the 


144 THE SEE OF PETER 


in every way. For I believe in the living God, through whom 
I shall overthrow your sorceries. Now let him do in your 
presence the marvels which he has been doing. And then 
will you refuse to believe what I said of him?” Simon said: 
“Have you the audacity to speak of Jesus, the Nazarene, 
the son of a carpenter and himself a carpenter, whose family 
is in Judaea? © Listen, Peter, the Romans have under- 
standing; they are not fools.”’ And turning to the people, 
he said: ‘“ Men of Rome, is a god born? Is he crucified? 
He who has a lord is not a god.””™ And when he spoke thus, 
many answered: “ You say well, Simon.” 

24 But Peter said: ‘‘ Anathema upon what you have 
said of Christ! ... [He quotes from the prophets and 
apocryphal literature on the mystery of Christ’s birth.” ] 
But these things shall be unfolded to you afterwards. Now 
for you, Simon; do some one of the marvels with which you 
have hitherto seduced them and I will undo it through my 
Lord Jesus Christ.”” And Simon gathered boldness and said: 
“Tf the prefect will permit it, I will offer you a long 
contest.” 

25 Then the prefect agreed to give permission, pro- 
vided no impiety were committed.® And the prefect led 
out one of his attendants and said to Simon: “ Take this 
man and put him to death.” And he said to Peter: ‘‘ And 
do you revive him.”” And the prefect said to the people: 
“Tt is for you now to judge which of them is accepted of 
God, he who kills or he who makes alive.” .. . | 

26 [Simon speaks to the youth and he dies. Peter 


incident of Peter’s failure to walk upon the water, to which reference is made, 
supra, p. 139, is found in no other Scripture text but Matthew. It, however, may 
have been contained in the Greek original of our story. 

60 Matthew, XIII, 55, 56; Mark VI, 3. 

61 These and other speeches on the part of Simon are illustrations of what 
were presumably ordinary pagan comments on Christian preaching. Celsus also 
called Christ derisively a carpenter. Origen, Contra Celswm, VI, 34; cited by 
B. Pick, Apocryphal Acts, p. 95, N. 5. 

62 One quotation is from The Ascension of Isaiah, chap. XI, v. 14. Supra, 
pp. 69-71. 63 J.e., no sacrilege in the pagan sense. 


~ 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 145 


restores him to life. A believing widow prays to Peter to 
bring her son also back to life. | 

27 |The body of the widow’s son is brought in on a 
bier. Peter says:] “. .. And I hear the voice of Christ 
my Lord and say unto you: ‘ Young man, arise and walk 
with your mother as long as you are useful to her. And 
afterwards you shall serve me and minister at the altars 
in the office of deacon and of bishop.’”’ “ And immediately 
the dead man arose and the crowds who saw it were as- 
tounded and the people shouted: ‘‘ Thou God the Savior, 
thou the God of Peter, God the invisible and the Savior! ” 

28 [The mother of the wealthy senator Nicostratus, 
who has just died, begs that her son also be raised to life. 
The body, escorted by a great retinue, is carried into the 
forum and set down before Peter.| And Peter demanded 
silence and said in a loud voice: “‘ Men of Rome, now let 
there be a just judgment between me and Simon and do 
you determine which of us believes in the living God, he 
or I. Let him revive the body lying here and you may 
trust him as a messenger of God. But if he cannot, I will 
call upon my God; I will return the son alive to his mother 
and you shall believe that he is a sorcerer and a deceiver, 
who is dwelling among you.” And all who heard this 
thought that Peter’s words were fair. And they urged on 
Simon, saying: ‘‘ Now show openly what is in you; either 
convict or be convicted. Why stand still? Up, begin!” 
Then Simon, when he saw everyone turning toward him, 
stood silent. But after he saw the people were hushed and 
watching him, he cried out and said: ‘“‘ Men of Rome, if 
you see the dead man raised, will you expel Peter from 
the city? ” And all the people answered: “ We will not 
only expel him but we will burn him that very hour with 
fire.” And Simon went to the dead man’s head and thrice 
bent down to him and thrice lifted himself up and he showed 

64 According to the legend, this was Linus. Vide supra, p. 77. 


146 THE SEE OF PETER 


to the people that the man had raised his head and was 
moving and opening his eyes and bowing a little toward 
Simon. Forthwith they caught up wood and kindlings to 
burn Peter with fire. But Peter, receiving the power of 
Christ, lifted up his voice and said to them as they clamored 
against him: ‘“‘ Now I see, people of Rome, that I may not” 
call you foolish and vain, while your eyes and your ears and 
your hearts are darkened. How is your understanding ob- 
scured that you do not see that you have been bewitched, 
so as to imagine that a dead man has come to life who has 
not stood up? “ I might easily, men of Rome, say nothing 
but die in silence and leave you to the delusions of this 
world. But I have before my eyes the penalty of inex- 
tinguishable fire. So, if you wish, let the dead man speak; 
let him arise, if he is alive; let him loosen with his hands 
the band about his chin; let him call his mother and say 
to you, when you shout: ‘Why do you shout?’ Let him 
beckon you with his hand. . . .”. Then Agrippa, the pre- 
fect,°” no longer restraining himself, stood up and struck 
Simon away with his hands. And from that moment the 
dead man lay still as he was before. And the people, turn- 
ing in fury from the witchcraft of Simon, began to cry: 
“Hear, Caesar, if the dead man does not now arise, let 
Simon burn in place of Peter, since truly he has blinded 
us!” But Peter stretched out his hand and said: ‘“‘O men 
of Rome, now be patient! I do not say to you that Simon 
should burn when the youth is revived, for if I say it to you, 
you will do it.” The people cried out: ‘‘ Even against your 


65 Thus the text. The sense seems to require the omission of the “ not.” 

66 Stories of corpses which moved in obedience to the words of a miracle 
worker or magician were common in both pagan and Christian literature during 
the second century. Tertullian (De Anima, 51) tells of a dead woman, who to 
his own knowledge raised her hands in the posture of devotion while the priest 
was reading the prayers at her burial service. Peter surpasses other thaumaturgists 
by bringing the deceased back to the full activity of life. See Lucian’s dialogue, 
The Lover of Falsehood. 

87 The name may have been taken from the inscription over the portico of 
the Pantheon or from some other of the public buildings erected by Marcus 
Agrippa, the friend of Augustus. 


a 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 147 


will, Peter, we will do it.” And Peter said to them: “ If 
you persist in this course, the youth will not arise. For 
we have not learned to render evil for evil °* but to love 
our enemies and to pray for our persecutors.© And if even 
Simon can repent, it will be better. For God will not re- 
member his sins. Let him come, therefore, into the light 
of Christ. And if he cannot, let him possess the portion of 
his father, the devil.” But your hands will not be stained.” 
And when he had said this to the people, he went up to 
the youth and before reviving him he said to the mother: 
“These young men, whom you have freed in honor of your 
son, may still be free and serve their living master? For 
I know that some of them will be cut to the heart when 
they see your son raised from the dead, because they will 
again become his slaves. But let them all remain free and 
receive their food as they have done heretofore, for your 
son shall rise again, and let them be with him.” And Peter 


looked upon her for a while to see what she thought. And 


the mother of the youth said: ‘“‘ What else can I do? So 
here before the prefect I say that whatever I had to spend 
upon the body of my son they may have.” And Peter 
answered her: “‘ Let the rest be divided among the widows.” 
Then Peter, rejoicing in his heart, said in the spirit: ‘‘ Lord, 
who art pitiful, Jesus Christ, . .. let Nicostratus now 
arise!”? And Peter touched the youth upon his side and 
said: “‘ Arise!”? And the youth arose and threw off his 
cerements and sat up and loosed the band about his chin 


and asking for other garments, came down from the bier 


and said to Peter: ‘I entreat you, man of God, let us go 


~ 68 Romans XII, 17; 1 Peter III, 9. 

69 Matthew V, 44; Luke VI, 27, 28. 

70 John VIII, 44. 

‘71 The attitude of the apostles and the early Church toward slavery was to 
accept it, like the institutions of the State, but to practice it with mercy. Slaves 
were to serve their masters dutifully and masters to be considerate of their slaves, 
for in the eyes of God there was neither bond nor free. 1 Peter II, 18 sqg. A. J. 
Carlyle, History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West (4 vols., London, 1903), 
Vol. I, chaps. VIII, X. 


148 | THE SEE OF PETER 


to our Lord Jesus Christ, whom I saw talking with you 
and who said to you, pointing you to me: ‘Bring him 
hither to me, for he is mine.’” .. . 

29 From that same hour they adored him as a god, 
falling at his feet and bringing to him all whom they had 
diseased at home, that he might heal them. But the prefect, 
seeing the great multitude waiting upon Peter, commanded 
Peter to depart. And Peter bade the people come to the 
house of Marcellus. ... [Nicostratus and his mother 
bes shea for distribution to the widows. | 

* [Chryses, a harlot, brings Peter money for the 
ae ; 

31... And Simon Mee after a few days promised 
the multitude to convict Peter of believing not on a true 
god but on a false. Therefore he performed many feats 
of magic, but the disciples, who were now steadfast, laughed 
at him. For in the dining-halls he made spirits return to 
their bodies, yet only in a fantasy, for in reality they did 
not.” And what more is there to tell? He was extolled by 
many for his sorcery and he made the lame appear whole 
for a short time and the blind likewise and the dead he 
seemed to bring to life and awaken for a moment, even as 
he did Stratonicus. And Peter followed him everywhere 
and exposed him to those who looked on. So, when he was 
continually shamed and ridiculed by the Roman crowd and 
disbelieved for not achieving what he promised to do, he said 
to them: ‘‘ Men of Rome, do you now think that Peter has 
vanquished me by his superior power and are you following 
after him? You have been deceived. Tomorrow I will leave 
you, godless and irreligious people, and fly to God, whose 
power I am even in my affliction. Though you have fallen, 


72 Thus far these Acts of Peter are extant only in a Latin version. From this 
point on we have a Greek version as well. Lipsius prints both texts. Og. cit., 
78 sqq. 

73 Supra, p. 146, n. 

74 Another form ee ne name Nicostratus, the two roots of which it is com- 
posed being transposed. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 149 


lo, Iam the Standing One;” and I shall ascend to my Father 
and say to him: ‘ Even me, the Standing One, thy son, they 
have endeavored to overthrow; but I did not yield to them 
and escaped to myself.’” — 

32 And the next day a vast multitude gathered in the 
Via Sacra, that they might behold his flight. And Peter 
came thither to see the spectacle, that he might expose him 
even in this, since, when Simon entered Rome, he had 
amazed the people by flying. For Peter, who exposed him, 
was not then at Rome and he had deluded the city with his 
wiles, so that some clave to him. And now, taking his stand 
upon a high place” and seeing Peter, he began to speak: 
‘““ Peter, now that I am about to ascend in the sight of all 
these people, I say to you: ‘If your god has power, whom 
the Jews slew, stoning you whom he had chosen, let him 
show that his faith is of God and let it appear forthwith if 
it is worthy of God. For I shall ascend and reveal myself 
to all this multitude as I am.’” And lo, he rose on high 
over all Rome, while everyone beheld him soaring even over 
the temples and the hills, and the faithful bent their eyes 
- upon Peter. And Peter, perceiving the marvel of the sight, 
cried to the Lord Jesus Christ: “If thou sufferest him to 
accomplish what he has begun, now all who have trusted in 
thee will be put to shame and the signs and wonders which 
thou gavest them through me will be vain. MHasten thy 
grace, Lord, I pray, and let him fall from high and be 
wounded but not killed; let him be made impotent and let 
his leg be broken in three places.”” And he fell from high 
and broke his leg in three places. Then they stoned him 
and went every man to his own house and everyone there- 
after believed upon Peter. . . . [Gemellus, Simon’s friend, 


75 The accounts of Simon, the heretic, in Irenaeus, Hippolytus, the Clementine 
documents and later writers, all mention this epithet which he is said to have 
applied to himself. 

76 In a later Passion of Peter and Paul the “high place” above the Via Sacra 
is named as the Capitoline Hill. R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum 
Apocrypha, Vol. I, p. 23. 


150 THE SEE OF PETER 


abandons him and joins Peter. Simon escapes from Rome, 
is carried to Aricia and finally dies at Terracina. | 

33 And Peter abode in Rome, being glorified with the 
brethren in the Lord and giving thanks night and day for 
the multitude who daily were gathered to the holy name 
by the grace of the Lord. And the concubines of the prefect 
Agrippa came to Peter, four in number, Agrippina, Nicaria, 
Euphemia and Doris.” And hearing the doctrine of chastity 
and all the teachings of the Lord, they were smitten to the 
heart and agreed together to abstain from intercourse with 
Agrippa; and they were persecuted by him. Then Agrippa, 
being at a loss and greatly disturbed about them, for he 
loved them much, set a watch secretly to see where they 
went and ascertained that it was to Peter. And on their 
return, he said to them: ‘‘ That Christian has taught you to 
have no intercourse with me; understand that I will kill you 
and burn him alive.” But they endured all abuses from 
Agrippa and would no longer be inflamed by him, being 
strengthened by the might of Jesus. | 

34 |[Xantippe, wife of Albinus, a friend of Caesar, and 
other women hear Peter and withdraw from their husbands. 
Husbands also leave their wives, ‘‘ because they desire to 
serve God in holiness and chastity.” A tumult arises and 
Albinus complains to Agrippa, urging him to put Peter to 
death. | 

35 And while they considered the matter, Xantippe 
heard that her husband was taking counsel with Agrippa 
and she sent and informed Peter, that he might leave Rome. 
And the other brethren, together with Marcellus, besought 
him to go away. But Peter said to them: ‘ Shall we be put 
to flight, brethren? ” And they said to him: “ Nay, but 


77 There are some indications that Christianity spread more rapidly among 
high-born women than among men of the same class. Whether these and the 
subsequent names are those of traditional first century converts it is impossible to 
say. On the ascetic character assigned here to Peter’s teaching, vide supra, p. 
126. 


PT eR eye eI es er! a, 


Re ee ee ee ee a AN Rian ep eee pipe 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 151 


that you may be able still to serve the Lord.” And he was 
persuaded by the brethren and went forth alone, saying: 
“Let no one of you depart with me, but I will go out alone, 
for I have changed my purpose.” And when he was passing 
out through the city gate, he saw the Lord coming into 
Rome. And when he saw him, he said: “ Lord, whither 
goest thou?” And the Lord said to him: “ I am coming to 
Rome to be crucified.” And Peter said to him: “ Lord, art 
thou crucified again? ”” He answered him: “ Yea, Peter, I 
am crucified again.”” And Peter came to himself and saw 
the Lord ascending into heaven; and he turned back into 
Rome, glorifying and praising the Lord, because he said: 
“T am crucified.” For that selfsame death was to befall 
Peter.” 

36 So returning again to the brethren, he related to them 
what he had seen. And they were sorrowful in heart and 
mourned and said: ‘‘ We beseech you, Peter, take thought 


. for us who are young.” And Peter said: “ If it is the Lord’s 


will, it will come to pass, even though it be not ours. And 
the Lord is able to establish you in his faith. ...” And 
while Peter thus spoke and all the brethren lamented, be- 
hold, four soldiers seized him and led him away to Agrippa. 
And he in his frenzy gave command that Peter be crucified 
on the charge of impiety. Then all the company of the 
brethren gathered together, both rich and poor, orphans and 
widows, weak and strong, eager to see and deliver Peter; 
and the people clamored incessantly with one voice: ‘ What 
wrong has Peter done, Agrippa? How has he harmed you? 
Tell the Romans!” And others said: ‘“[We ought to fear] 
lest, if he be put to death, his Lord may destroy us all.” 
And Peter, reaching the spot, calmed the multitude and 


78 One may note that in this oldest version of the Quo Vadis story the words 
of Jesus to Peter are not understood as a rebuke but as an assurance. He is not 
to suffer in Peter’s stead, because Peter is too weak to face death, but is to die 
with Peter, the master with the disciple. The “ Domine Quo Vadis” chapel outside 
the Porta San Sebastiano still marks the spot where Peter is supposed to have 
turned back. 


152 THE SEE OF PETER 


said: ‘“‘ Men who are soldiers for Christ, men who hope in 
Christ, remember the signs and wonders which you have 
seen through me; remember the compassion of God, what 
works of healing he has wrought for you. Endure patiently 
until he come and render to every man according to his 
works. And be not angry now against Agrippa, for he is a 
minister of inherited power. And it is altogether come to 
pass as the Lord showed me it would. But why do I delay 
and come not to the cross? ” 

37 And when he had come and was standing by the 
cross, he began to say: “‘O name of the cross, a hidden 
mystery, O grace inexpressible, called by the name of the 
cross, O race of man, that cannot be parted from God, 
O unspeakable and unescapable love, that cannot be de- 
clared by polluted lips, . . . And I ask you, executioners, 
to crucify me head downward and not otherwise; and oo 
reason I will unfold to those who hear.” 

38 and 39 And when they had suspended him in the 
manner which he desired, he began to speak again: “ Men 
who are ready to hear, listen to what I, hanging from the 
cross, shall now disclose unto you. ... [He expounds 
the mysteries of up and down, right and left, quoting the 
saying of the Lord: ‘ Unless you make your right as your 


left and your left as your right and your up as your down > 


and your back as your front, you will not know the king- 
dom.’ thal 

40 And the multitude standing by said: “ Amen,” with 
a loud voice, and at the “ Amen,” Peter yielded up his spirit 
to the Lord. ... [Marcellus takes down Peter’s body, 
wraps it in spices and lays it in his own tomb. Shortly 
afterward, he sees Peter in a dream and is admonished to 
cease mourning and let the dead bury their dead.] And 
Marcellus, waking from sleep, described the vision of Peter 


79 A saying contained probably in the lost Gospel of the Egyptians. B. Pick, 
Paralipomena, p. 65. For two other such sayings vide infra, pp. 253, 254. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 153 


to the brethren and was himself confirmed the more, as were 
also those who had been confirmed by Peter in the faith of 
Christ, until the return of Paul to Rome. 

41 And Nero, hearing later of the death of Peter, blamed 
the prefect Agrippa, because he had put him to death with- 
out Nero’s knowledge. For he had intended to inflict more 
punishment on him and crueler torture. For Peter had made 
disciples of some of Nero’s household *’ and had caused 
them to leave him; on that account he was angry that 
Agrippa had not spoken at the time. And he set about 
to destroy all the brethren who had been disciples of 
Peter. ... [But he has a dream warning him not to 
persecute the Christians for the time being. | 

The Acts of the Apostle Peter with Simon are ended 
in peace. Amen. 


3. REFERENCES TO THE PETRINE LEGEND IN 
THIRD CENTURY LITERATURE 


The four extracts which follow, taken two from Greek and | 
two from Latin literature, give some idea of the impression pro- 
duced by the legend of Peter and Simon and the uses to which 
it was put in various circles during the century after its appear- 
ance. The more serious third century scholars and theologians 
for the most part ignored it but popular writers were caught by 
its glamour. The first reference to it that can be dated with any 
degree of certainty is in a poem written by one Commodian, about 
the year 250. Commodian, a resident of the Western Empire, 
was converted from paganism by reading the Scriptures and some 
time later composed what is usually called the first distinctively 
Christian poetry, two didactic works in Latin verse, intended to 
warn and convince his Jewish and pagan readers and to instruct 
and hearten his fellow Christians. In the course of an argument 
addressed particularly to the Jews, he likened the miracle of the 


80 Vide Philippians, IV, 22. The conclusion here leaves room for the historic 
persecution of the Christians by Nero and the death of Paul to happen later. 


154 THE SEE OF PETER 


dog that summoned Simon to the Old Testament portent of 
Balaam’s ass that spoke.** 

The second reference comes also from the writings of a con- 
vert with a taste for polite letters. Arnobius, like his contempo- 


rary Lactantius,*” was a rhetorician in the province of Africa 


during the closing years of the third century. He was persuaded 
of the truth of Christianity by a vision seen in a dream and in 
order to prove to the local bishop the sincerity of his conversion, 
he wrote a treatise, Against the Pagans, containing a warm de- 
fense of his new faith and a denunciation of pagan mythology 
and ritual. The paragraph we quote forms the climax of an 
effort to prove the authenticity of the Christian religion by the 
rapidity of its expansion. 

The Teaching of the Apostles, from which we take our third 
set of extracts, belongs to quite a different type of document. 
It is itself an apocryphal work, ostensibly a general letter of 
instruction sent out by the twelve apostles, after the meeting in 
Jerusalem described in the Acts.** As a matter of fact, the book 
was composed during the earlier half of the third century as a 
manual of Christian discipline for the use of Syrian and Arabic 
communities. The author enumerates the qualifications and func- 
tions of the various church officials, emphasizing particularly the 
authority possessed by bishops as the chief instrument of govern- 
ment. The power to bind and loose belongs to them as representa- 
tives of the apostles, on whom collectively Christ conferred it.** 
Peter is not here mentioned as wielding that power to any su- 
perior degree, but as the illustrious victor over heresy embodied 
in Simon Magus. The author depicts observances customary 
in the Syrian church of his day but draws the material for 
his exhortations and his literary allusions from an earlier and 
shorter Teaching or Didache, dating from the end of the first 
century, and also from the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Justin 
Martyr’s Dialogue, the Acts of Peter, and other more primitive 
writings. He wrote originally in Greek but the first text has dis- 
appeared and the book survives only in a Syriac and in frag- 
ments of a Latin translation. 


81 Numbers, XXII, 23-31. 83 Acts, XV, 1-209. 
82 Supra, p. 27. 84 Matthew XVIII, 18. 


EE a a a ee ee ee 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 155 


Our last selection is from still another branch of Christian 
literature, the Greek religious novel, and is interesting princi- 
pally as showing how the story of Peter and Simon was utilized 
and adapted by fiction-mongers, as well as by propagandists with 
earnest purposes. Xanthippe and Polyxena is an historical ro- 
mance of the fearful adventures of certain converts to Paul’s 
preaching during his tour in Spain. The Christian heroine suf- 
fers abduction to the farther end of the Mediterranean and every 
sort of appalling peril and is saved from one unbelievable situa- 
tion after another by a series of equally unbelievable interposi- 
tions of Providence. The whole is the product of a trite and 
sentimental imagination and resembles the works of Tatius and 
Heliodorus.** Peter on his way to meet Simon at Rome is in- 
troduced as one more figure in the scene of turmoil. 

On these various authors vide G. Krueger, History of Early Christian 
Literature (trans. by C. R. Gillett, New York, 1897); O. Bardenhewer, Pa- 
trology (trans. by T. Shahan, St. Louis, 1908), passim; A. Harnack, Ge- 
schichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893- 
1904); E. Freppel, Commodien, Arnobe, Lactance (Paris, 1893); F. X. Funk, 
_ Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (2 vols., Paderborn, 1905); P. de 
Labriolle, History and Literature of Latin Christianity from Tertullian to 
Boethius (New York, 1925). 


COMMODIAN 
Ge ayes 


Carmen Apologeticum, lines 623-626. Text. Ed. by B. 
Dombart. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Lati- 
norum, XV, 155-156. 

He is God, yet he often has made himself man, 

And will perform what he will, making dumb creatures 

speak. 

He made the ass address Balaam, who sat on its back, 

And the dog say to Simon: “ Peter is calling for thee!” 

85 An example of this style of romance, well known to every English reader, 


is Shakespeare’s play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The source of its plot is this 
late Greek fiction. 


156 THE SEE OF PETER 


ARNOBIUS 


(fl. 284-305) 

Adversus Gentes or Adversus Nationes, II, 12. Text. Ed. 
by A. Reifferscheid, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclestasticorum 
Latinorum, IV, 57. 

For there can be reckoned up and set down in a catalogue 
the deeds accomplished in India, among the Seres, Persians 
and Medes, in Arabia and Egypt, in Asia and Syria, among 
the Galatians, Parthians and Phrygians, in Achaia, Mace- 
donia and Epirus, in all the islands and provinces lighted 
by the rising and the setting sun, and finally in Rome, the 
mistress city itself. There, although the inhabitants were 
infatuated with the arts of King Numa and with ancient 
superstitions, yet they did not hesitate to abandon their 
ancestral customs and gather to the Christian truth. For 
they saw the fiery chariot and horses of Simon Magus dis- 
perse at the word of Peter and vanish with the name of 
Christ;*° they saw, I say, the believer in false gods betrayed 
by them in their fear, fallen by his own weight and lying 
prostrate with broken legs, then carried to Brunda,” over- 
whelmed by pain and humiliation, and casting himself down 
again from the roof of a high house. 

THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLES 
(Third Century ) 

Didascalia Apostolorum, cc. V, IX, XXIV. Text. Ed. and 
trans. by M. D. Gibson, Horae Semiticae, No. II, 27-28, 
51, 106-107. 

V .... Because of this, O Bishop, strive to be pure in 


86 Whether Arnobius had read another version of the Simon Magus legend, 
which made him fly in a fiery chariot, or whether Arnobius was making fanciful 
use of a figure drawn from the Scriptural account of the translation of Elijah (4 
Kings, II, 1; in the King James Version, 2 Kings II, 1), it is hard to say. 

87 Or Brundisium, the modern Brindisi. The scene of Simon’s death was 
always a matter for variation. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 157 


thy works and know thy place, that thou art appointed in 
the semblance of God Almighty and that thou holdest the 
place of God Almighty; thus sit in the church and teach, 
as one who hath power to judge, in the place of Almighty 
God, those that sin; for to you bishops it is said in the 
Gospel that what ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. 

IX ... What more can we say? For the king, who 
wears the crown, reigns only over the body and binds and 
looses only in this world, but the bishop reigns over both 
soul and body, that he may loosen on the earth and bind in 
heaven by heavenly power.” 

XXIV [Peter speaks of the rise of heresies.| ... 
“ When he [Simon] was in Rome, he greatly troubled the 
church and perverted many and showed himself as if he 
were ready to ascend to Heaven; and he captivated the 
gentiles, exciting them by the power of the energy of his 
sorceries. One day, I went out and saw him in the market 
deceiving the people; we disputed with one another about 
the Resurrection and about the life of the dead. And when 
he was conquered, he pretended to fly in the air and began 
to give a sign to his attendants to raise him. And when he 
had risen to a great distance, then I stood and said to him: 
‘ By the power of the name of Christ, I cut off thy powers, 
that they depart from thee.’ Then the demons departed 
from him and he fell and was broken from the heel of his 
foot and he died. And many turned from him; but others, 
who were worthy of him, remained with him. Thus first 
his heresies were fixed.” 


88 The oldest explicit statement, as far as we are aware, of the superiority of 
the ecclesiastical to the civil power. For fourth century protests against the 
intrusion of the State into church affairs, vide infra, pp. 541, n. 1733 579. 


158 THE SEE OF PETER © 


THE ACTS OF XANTHIPPE AND POLYXENA 
(Third Century) 


Acta Xanthippis et Polyxenae, XXIV. Text. Ed. by 
M. James, Texts and Studies, II, No. 3. 


XXIV While she [Polyxena] was saying these words, 
those who were dragging her away walked in haste and 
reaching the shore, they hired a ship and sailed for Baby- 
lonia, for he that carried her off had a brother there, a ruler 
of a district. But the wind blew against them, so that they 
could not proceed by reason of it. And as they were rowing 


on the sea, behold, the great apostle of the Lord, Peter, was 


sailing past in a ship, having been urged in a dream to go 
to Rome, because when Paul departed for Spain, there had 
entered into Rome a certain charlatan and magician, Simon 
by name, who had broken up the church which Paul had 
established. And behold, as he sailed, he heard a voice 
from heaven saying to him: “ Peter, tomorrow there will 
meet thee a ship coming from Spain; arise, therefore, and 
pray for the soul that is troubled in it.” ... 


4. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PETRINE LEGEND DURING . 
THE THIRD CENTURY 


Side by side with the legends of Peter at Rome was rising, 
as we have said, a network of fabrication woven about his career 
before his journey to Rome.*** Some of this originated in Egypt, 
some in Syria, where faint memories of his presence may still have 
persisted. At the beginning of the third century, there was, it 
appears, already in existence a book of Preachings (knpvypua) 
of Peter, in which Peter was portrayed as the mainstay of the 
Church, expounding the principles of a Gnostic form of Judaistic 
Christianity, opposed both to the freer gentile Christianity of 
Paul and to the more thoroughly Hellenized Gnostic philosophies 


88a Supra, p. 124. 


—~ ae 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 159 


of the Samaritans and other non-Christian inhabitants of Syria. 
Prefixed to the Preachings was a fictitious letter from Peter to 
James, the apostolic head of the church at Jerusalem, in which 
Peter reported to James, as his official chief, on the progress of 
his mission and made a bitter allusion to “‘ converts from the 
gentiles,” who were being taught by an enemy to disobey “the 
law of God as spoken through Moses,” a clear thrust at Paul.®®° 
During the latter half of the third century, the Preachings 
seem to have fallen into the hands of some resident of one of the 
cities on the Syrian coast, who knew the legend of Peter and 
Simon at Rome and perhaps the letter of Clement of Rome to 
the Corinthians.**° To this man occurred the fruitful idea of 
rewriting and expanding the Preachings and enclosing them in 
the framework of a new romance which should bring them into 
connection with Peter’s later adventures at Rome. A connecting 
link was supplied in the person of Clement, who was made the 
narrator of an imaginary autobiography, describing, first, his 
youth at Rome, the singular loss of his parents and brother and 
the first appearance of a Christian missionary in the city, then, 
his own voyage in search of an apostle who could teach more of 
the new doctrine, his attendance upon Peter during his travels 
along the Syrian seacoast and his public discussions with Simon 
Magus, with Apion, the grammarian, and with Faustus, the dev- 
otee of astrological science, finally, the happy reunion of all 
Clement’s family under Peter’s benevolent auspices and Peter’s 
determination to go on to Rome to meet Simon Magus again. 
This newer book was called the Journeys or Circuits (aeptodot) 
of Peter and was furnished with an introduction in the shape of 
a fictitious letter from Clement to James after Peter’s martyrdom. 
In this letter, Clement related his own ordination by Peter to 
succeed him in his chair and authority and Peter’s request that 
he should send a report of his death to James. The two aims 
conspicuous in the Preachings, namely, the exaltation of Peter 
at the expense of Paul and, at the same time, the acknowledg- 
ment by Peter of the headship of the church at Jerusalem, 
88b Epistola Petri ad Jacobum, printed in Migne with the later Epistola 


Clementis. Supra, pp. 125-126. 
88¢ Supra, pp. 66 ff. 


160 THE SEE OF PETER 


were perceptible here but not so marked. As compared with the 
Preachings, the later book expressed a milder Jewish, national 
sentiment, already half reconciled to the more metaphysical 
viewpoint of the Hellenized gentile church of the East in that 
period. In Clement’s letter, the deference paid to James was of 
negligible importance in comparison with the sanction bestowed 
upon the office of the episcopate, above all the Roman episcopate, 
by Peter’s delegation of absolute powers to Clement. Indeed, 
Harnack and Waitz regard the Roman bias as strong enough here 
to justify the theory that the Journeys and its introductory letter 
were written not by a Syrian but by a catholic of Rome.** 

The Journeys of Peter in its original form, save for Clement’s 
letter, has perished, as has its predecessor, the Preachings. We 
deduce the nature of their contents from two paraphrases or 
summaries of the Journeys, which were composed during the 
fourth century and have since been known, the one as the Recog- 
nitions, the other as the Homilies. The former was written like 
the rest in Greek, but, at the end of the fourth century, was 
translated by Jerome’s friend, Rufinus, into Latin, along with the 
letter of Clement to James. Called Recognitions from the de- 
nouement of the story, namely, Clement’s discovery of his long 
lost relatives, it reproduced all the romantic episodes of the 
Journeys, abridged the discussions and eliminated most of the 
remaining Jewish characteristics.°° In particular, the discourses 
of Peter were pruned of any intention other than the refutation 
of paganism. The book could be read without offense by any 
Christian who took a speculative interest in current philosophical 
problems. The Homilies, on the other hand, as the title suggests, 
omitted portions of the romance and repeated the discussions at 


length, retaining the semi-Judaistic flavor of the Journeys.™ 


Hort hazards the opinion that the Recognitions certainly, if not 


89 See Tertullian’s statement, about 200 a.p., that the Roman church could 


produce a record of Clement’s appointment as bishop by Peter. Supra, p. 86. 
Origen knew some account of the teaching of Clement by Peter. Commentary on 
Genesis and on Matthew, XXVI, 6, quoted by J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 
vol. I, 1158. Earlier yet, Irenaeus had spoken of Clement as one who had heard 
the apostles preach. Infra, p. 268. 

90 It is considerably less Jewish than the Teachings or Didascalia of the 
Apostles, from which we have quoted. Supra, p. 156. 

91 For example, in Homilies, XVII, 5, 14, Peter is made to deride Simon Magus 
for claiming that he obtained a real knowledge of Jesus through seeing him once 


a nn ae \ oe 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 161 


the Journeys, are Roman handiwork. Lightfoot, however, seems 
assured that both Recognitions and Journeys, as well as Homilies, 
were compiled in Syria, though in different circles and under 
different influences. 

Translated into Latin, the Recognitions soon gained a wide 
popularity in the West. The dramatic incidents of the story 
appealed to public taste and Clement became the patron saint 
of countless churches all over Christendom. Faith in the great- 
ness of Peter was given more food for growth. The eastern form 
of his legend, that brought him to Rome under Claudius, was 
now commonly accepted, even though it did violence to the New 
Testament and to the oldest tradition at Rome itself. The letter 
of Clement to James, that drew so plain a picture of Peter’s 
transfer of his full authority to his successor, was in time valued 
at its strategic worth. It was cited as genuine by the Synod of 
Vaison in 442 and excepted from the apocryphal literature con- 
demned by Pope Innocent I and by the Jndex attributed to 
Gelasius. In an enlarged form, it was set at the head of the ninth 
century collection of pontifical letters and decretals that went 
under the name of pseudo-Isidore, where it remained unchallenged 
until the Renaissance. 


The complicated problems presented by the Clementine literature have 
been the subject of much conjecture and argument. We have stated the case 
here in barest outline. For more adequate consideration, see A. Harnack, 
Geschichte der alichristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1897- 
1904), Vol. II (Der Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur), pp. 518 sqq.; 
H. Waitz, Die Pseudo-Clementinen Homilien und Rekognitionen (Leipzig, 
1904) in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Li- 
teratur, Vol. XXV‘4; J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., London, , 
1889-1890), Pt. I (Clement of Rome); F. J. A. Hort, Notes Introductory to 
the Study of the Clementine Recognitions (London, 1901); A. C. Headlam, 
The Clementine Literature in Journal of Theological Studies (London, 1901), 
Vol. III, pp. 41-58; J. V. Bartlet, Clementine Literature in Encyclopaedia 
Britannica (11th ed., 29 vols., London, 1910-1911); F. H. Chase, Peter in 
J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols., New York, 1901-1904); H. U. 
Meyboom, Die Clemens-Roman (Groningen, 1902-1904), Pts. I-II. 


in a vision. A slight on Paul is obviously intended there. But such passages are 
exceptional. Most of the discussion turns on matters that have nothing to do with 
Paul’s peculiarities. 


162 THE SEE OF PETER 


RUFINUS’ PREFACE TO His TRANSLATION OF 
THE RECOGNITIONS 


(c. 395) 


Rufinus, Praefatio ad Recognitiones. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, I, 1207. 


. .. There is a letter®’ in which this same Clement, 
writing to James, the Lord’s brother, gives an account of 
the death of Peter and says that he has left himself as his 
successor to be ruler and teacher of the Church, and which 
furthermore includes a complete picture of ecclesiastical 
government. This I have not prefixed to the work | Recog- 
nitions |, both because it deals with a later time and because 
it has already been translated and published by me. Never- 
theless, there is a point in it, which perhaps seems incon- 
sistent to some people, and which I believe I can properly 
explain here. For some ask how, since Linus and Cletus 
were bishops of the city of Rome before Clement,” Clement 
himself when writing to James can say that Peter committed 
to him his chair of instruction. The explanation of this dif- 
ficulty, as we have received it, is as follows. Linus and 
Cletus were, no doubt, bishops in the city of Rome before 
Clement but that was during Peter’s lifetime; that is, they 
performed the episcopal duties while he filled the office of 
the apostolate.“ He is known to have done the same at 
Caesarea, for there, although he was himself on the spot, 
yet he had with him Zacchaeus, whom he had ordained as 
bishop.** Thus we see that both things may be true, namely, 


92 This whole extract from Rufinus shows how seriously the letter to James 
was being taken. 

93 Linus and Cletus stand before Clement in the oldest episcopal lists. Infra, 
pp. 249, 268. But from the beginning of the third century there was a popular 
tendency to disregard them and to make the more famous Clement Peter’s direct 
successor. Supra, p. 85, Nn. 63. 

94 Rufinus draws a distinction between the position of an apostle and that of 
a bishop. Not all of the Fathers were so exact. Many of them, as we notice, 
speak as if the bishops succeeded to the apostolic office and carried on the same 
functions. 95 Recognitions, III, 65 sqq.; infra, p. 167. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 163 


that the two are counted before Clement in the list of bishops 
and yet that Clement after Peter’s death became his suc- 
cessor in the seat of instruction. 


PsEUDO-CLEMENT, LETTER TO JAMES 
(Third Century ) 


Epistola Clementis ad Jacobum, 1-19. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, I, 463-472. 


Clement to James, the brother of the Lord and bishop 
of the bishops,” who governs at Jerusalem the holy church 
of the Hebrews and all the churches that have been every- 
where founded by the providence of God, with the priests 
and deacons and all the other brethren, peace always. 

1 Be it known unto you, my lord, that Simon Peter, 
who for his true faith and sure foundation of doctrine was 
set apart to be the foundation of the Church and for this 
cause was renamed Peter by the Lord’s divine lips, the first 
fruit of our Lord’s choosing, the first of the apostles, to 
whom first God the Father revealed the Son, whom Christ 
with good reason pronounced blessed,”’ the called and elect, 
the Lord’s companion and follower, the good and most ap- 
proved disciple, who as mightiest of them all was commanded 
to enlighten the dark realms of the world, that is, the West, 
and was able to accomplish it well,°* — but how I am pro- 
longing my words out of reluctance to tell sad tidings, which 
yet I must, indeed, though sorrowfully, give you! This 
Peter then, impelled by his vast love for all mankind, in full 
confidence, even though the tyrant of the whole earth with- 
stood him,” preached publicly that there was a good King 


96 A title which in the third century was also applied to the bishop of Rome. 
Infra, pp. 231, 301, 396. : 

97 Matthew, IV, 18-20; X, 2; XVI, 17-18. 

98 This eulogy of Peter as the chief missionary to the West completely ignores 
Paul. 

99 Probably Simon Magus is meant, though the allusion may be to the 
emperor. 


164 THE SEE OF PETER 


forever over all the world, and he came as far as Rome so as 
to save the city. But he, I say, consented to suffer for his 
fidelity and has now ended this life. 

2 But during those days when he felt the end of his life 
approaching he was in a gathering of the brethren and he 
took my hand and stood up suddenly and said in the pres- 
ence of the entire church: “‘ Hear me, brethren and fellow 
servants! Forasmuch as I have been warned by him who 
sent me, my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, that the day of 
my death is nigh, I ordain this Clement to be your bishop 
and to him alone I entrust my chair **° of preaching and 
instruction. For he has been my comrade in all things from 
the beginning to the end and so has learned the truth of all 


my preaching. He has shared in all my trials and proved - 


himself steadfast. I have found him above the rest devout, 
charitable, pure, industrious in study, grave, kindly, just, 
patient, with understanding to bear some ingratitude, even 
from those whom he is training in the word of God. There- 
fore, I bestow on him the power of binding and loosing, which 
the Lord bestowed on me, so that whatever he shall decree 
on earth shall be decreed in the heavens.’ For he shall 
bind what ought to be bound and loose what ought to be 
loosed, knowing the clear rule of the Church. Therefore, do 


you hear him and understand that he who grieves the teacher 


of the truth sins against Christ and offends God the Father 
of all, so that he shall not live. Likewise, he who presides 
ought to play the part of a physician and not yield to the 
temper of an unreasoning beast.” 

3 As he thus spoke, I fell at his feet and entreated him, 
excusing myself and refusing the honor and authority of the 


100 Cathedram. 3 

101 J.e,, the power to bind and loose gives the power to legislate as absolute 
ruler. In §17 the people are told to be “obedient in all things.” Peter says 
nowhere that the power he gives to Clement is more than that which belongs to 
any bishop, but the gift is made as a personal transfer of his own peculiar authority 
to the mar he has selected to follow him in the Church. It would be easy to 
understand from this that Clement was privileged above other bishops. 


ae 
eS ee 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 165 


(74 


chair. But he answered. ‘“. . . [Clement should be willing 
to undertake the care and responsibility, in order to help 
the church. | 

4... Therefore, accept gladly the office of the bishop- 
ric and all the more that you have learned from me how to 
administer the church, that the welfare of the brethren who 
have taken refuge in God through us be not shaken. 

5-16 [Instructions on the duty of bishops, to refrain 
from secular concerns and teach; also on the duties of 
priests, deacons, catechists and lay members, on the need of 
brotherly love, etc.] ... .” 

17 And having said this and more than this, he looked 
again upon the people and said: ‘‘ And you also, my beloved 
brethren and fellow servants, be obedient in all things to 
him who presides over you to teach you the truth and rest 
assured of this, that he who grieves him has not received 
Christ, who entrusted to him the chair of teaching, and he 
who has not received Christ shall not, as we believe, receive 
the Father and shall not therefore be received in the kingdom 
of heaven. .. .” 

19 With these words he laid his hands upon me in the 
presence of them all and compelled me, overcome by my 
great reverence, to sit in his own chair. And when I was 
seated, he again said to me: “I beseech you, O Clement, 
before all who are here, that whensoever I depart this life, 
as depart I must by nature, you send to James, the Lord’s 
brother, a brief story of your experiences from the beginning 
of your faith.’ . . . And then at the end do not fail to 
inform him briefly, as I said, of the death I have met in this 
city. And do not fear that he will grieve much, when he 
knows that I endured it for the faith. . . .” 


102 It will be remembered that this letter was composed as an introduction to 
the Journeys. Supra, p. 159. 


166 THE SEE OF PETER 


PsEUDO-CLEMENT, THE RECOGNITIONS 
(Third Century) 


Recognitiones, I, passim; III, passim. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, I, 1209-1210, 1214, 1232, 1246, 
1309-1310. 


I 6... Acertain rumor, which first arose in the regions of 
the East, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, gradually reached 
us [in Rome]; and gaining strength as it passed through 
every place, like some good message sent from God, it spread 
through the whole world. ... For it was related every- 
where that there was a man in Judaea, who, beginning in 
the spring, was preaching the kingdom of God. ... This 
report and more like it were confirmed in process of time not 
only by repeated rumors but by the positive declarations of 
persons who came from that country; and day by day the 
truth of it was more fully made clear. 

7 At length, meetings began to be held in various places 
in the city and the subject to be discussed in conversations, 

. until, during the same year, a man stood up in a 
crowded spot in the city and made a proclamation to the 
people, saying: “Hear me, O citizens of Rome!™ .. . 
[He tells of the coming of Christ.]” Now the man who 
spoke thus to the people was from the regions of the East, 
by nation a Hebrew, by name Barnabas, and he said that 
he himself was one of his disciples. . . . 

[Clement sets sail for the East and finds Peter in 
Caesarea. | 

13 [Peter speaks to Clement.] “. . . If there is noth- 
ing to prevent you, come with us and hear the word of truth, 

103 This passage possesses some interest as the earliest attempt, even though an 


apocryphal one, to describe the first coming of a Christian. messenger to Rome. 
The Homilies have a similar passage but leave the first preacher nameless. In 


them, Clement finds Barnabas in Alexandria. Barnabas was the one chosen to 


preach first to the Greeks at Antioch. Acts, XI, 22. 


oe 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 167 


which we are going to preach in every place until we come 
even to the city of Rome... . 

43... The church of the Lord which was established 
in Jerusalem was most plentifully multiplied and grew, be- 
ing governed with most righteous ordinances by James, who 
was ordained bishop in it by the Lord... . 

72 While, therefore, we abode in Jericho and gave our- 

selves to prayer and fasting, James, the bishop, summoned 
me and sent me here to Caesarea, saying that Zacchaeus 
had written to him from Caesarea that one Simon, a magician 
of Samaria, was subverting many of our people. ... .” 
III 63 [Simon Magus has been outdone in a long debate 
with Peter on the nature of God, origin of evil, incon- 
sistencies of the Old Testament, idolatry, etc. One of his 
followers turns against him and comes to Peter and gives 
him an account of Simon’s doings.| ‘“ Then he [Simon] 
asked me [the follower] to accompany him, saying that he 
was going to Rome and that he would please the people there 
so much that he would be counted among the gods and pub- 
licly offered divine honors. . . . And after this he set out 
for Rome, as he said.” ... 

65 |Peter speaks.| “. . . Since therefore, as you have 
heard, Simon has set out to engage the minds of the gentiles 
who are called to salvation, it is needful that I also follow 
upon his track, so as to refute whatever arguments he 
presents... .” 

[Peter appoints Zacchaeus as ruler of the church in 
Caesarea, giving him directions as to the duties of a bishop 
and other officers, discipline, etc., more concise than those 
he is represented as giving to Clement in the latter’s letter 
to James but not dissimilar. |*** 

104 In the Homilies, Simon after his defeat flees before Peter into Judaea, and 
Peter goes on to Antioch without mention of any immediate purpose to go to 
Rome. Homilies, XX. Peter says only once at the beginning that he expects 


ultimately to arrive at Rome. Homilies, I, 16. In the Recognitions, Rome is 
spoken of several times. Vide, beside the passages quoted, I, 74. 


168 THE SEE OF PETER 


5. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGEND DURING THE FOURTH 
AND FIFTH CENTURIES 


MARTYRDOM OF THE Hoty APOSTLES PETER AND PAvut — 
Acts oF PETER AND PAUL 


The two following documents, the Martyrdom and the Acts 
of Peter and Paul, represent the orthodox response to the first 
Judaistic or Gnostic accounts of the labors and death of the 
apostle Peter. In their present form, both these narratives date 
perhaps no farther back than the fifth century but they are 
unquestionably expansions and revisions of legends that may 
have originated by the end of the second century, soon after the 
rise of the crop of primitive tales that showed Peter working and 
dying in solitary grandeur. 

The purpose of these is obviously, in the first place, to offset 
the Jewish campaign against Paul and to put him in his rightful 
position by Peter’s side as fellow hero and martyr. The depth 
of the impression created by the earlier Petrine legend is in- 
dicated, however, by the fact that even here, at the hands of 
his friends and contrary to what the New Testament would lead 
us to expect, Paul is set distinctly second to Peter and leaves to 
Peter the initiative both in speech and action. This Paul is a 
subdued and colorless creature, a sharp contrast to the man 
whose genius and ardor burn in the Epistles. Peter rules the 


church, shoulders the responsibility and is far the sturdier and 


more spirited character throughout. But Paul has a kind of for- 
mal justice done him, and the Roman church is enriched by the 
recognition of its other patron saint. 

The second purpose is to provide a chronicle of the apostles’ 
last days free from the taint of Gnostic dualism and asceticism. 
Accordingly, Nero is portrayed as condemning them on the 
ground of sacrilege or murder, and less is made of the female 
converts to celibacy. The stock features of the Simon Magus 
story are preserved, the statue, the conjuring tricks, the flight 
and fall, but the figure of the spiteful Simon himself has shrunk 
somehow to smaller proportions. The more dreadful antagonist 
is the loquacious and ruthless Nero. Perhaps in the minds of 


| 


Se he a ey 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 169 


the authors the solid, crushing weight of the civil power seemed 
a more formidable thing to face than the puny tricks of a sorcerer 
and his demons. Perhaps they had themselves some knowledge 
of long-drawn trials before magistrates. 

It is not possible at present to decide which is the older, 
our first document, which opens with both apostles at Rome, 
covers only the events resulting directly in their deaths and goes 
by the title of the Martyrdom or Passion, or the second, more 
comprehensive account, known as the Acts. The Martyrdom 
is contained in a sixteenth century Greek manuscript, called the 
Codex Marcianus, and in an old Latin version which bears the 
name Passio Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. It has also 
been found in Slavonic and Old Italian translations. The Greek 
and Latin are both printed by Lipsius and Bonnet. The second 
narrative is somewhat less diffuse in style but includes the story 
of Paul’s journey from the island of Melita to Rome, where he 
finds the church already organized by Peter. It is extant in a 
number of Greek texts. We give an abridged version of the 
Martyrdom and a few extracts from the Acts to illustrate the 
differences between the two. 


There has been less study of these Acts than of the Acts of Peter or 
of the Clementine literature. For further discussion and bibliography see 
F. H. Chase, Peter in J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols., New 
York, 1901-1904); A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis 
Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1897-1904), Vol. II (Die Chronologie der alt- 
christlichen Litteratur); R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum 
Apocrypha, Prolegomena (Leipzig, 1891-1903); O. Bardenhewer, Patrology 
(trans. by T. Shahan, St. Louis, 1908), § 30, 4. 


MARTYRDOM OF THE Hoty APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL 


Martyrium Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Text. 
Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. by R. A. Lipsius and 
M. Bonnet, 118-177. 


1-3 |Paul comes from Spain to Rome and is appealed 
to by the Jews, who say that Peter has overthrown the law 


170 THE SEE OF PETER 


and does not observe the Sabbaths or the feastdays.*” Paul 
sends word to Peter asking him to come to his lodging, since 
he himself is not allowed to go about, being held to appear 
before Caesar.|*°* And hearing this, Peter rejoiced with 
great joy and arose immediately and went to him. And 
when they saw each other, they wept for gladness and em- 
braced each other for a long time and bathed each other 
with their tears. 

4 And Paul gave to Peter a report of all his deeds and 
of how he had come through the shipwreck *”” and Peter in 
turn related to Paul the wiles he was enduring on the part 
of Simon Magus. And when evening came, Peter departed 
to his own dwelling. 

5-9 [Paul and Peter each address discordant Jewish and 
gentile factions. | 

1o And while Peter and Paul said this and other things 
like this, they were everyone silent and listened to them as 
they taught and preached to all the faithful the word of the 
Lord; and daily there were added a countless number of 
those who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And when 
the chiefs of the Jewish synagogue and the priests of the 
Greeks saw that through the preaching of these men all 
Rome would soon believe on our Lord Jesus Christ, they 
began themselves to excite a tumult and an uproar among 
the people and to laud Simon Magus before the multitude 
whom the apostles had gathered together; and they en- 
deavored to have him acclaimed in the presence of King 
Nero and to malign the apostles of the Lord.... [Asa 
result of Peter’s exhortations Livia, the wife of Nero,”°* and 

105 A simple form of retort to the Jewish attacks on Paul for subverting the 
law. Peter becomes here the one criticized for disregard of Mosaic observances, 
whereas Paul is expected to uphold them. 

106 Acts, XXVIII, 16 

107 Acts, XXVII, ty 

108 The social rank of the persons with whom the apostles come in contact 
grows more exalted, the further the narrative is from being contemporary record. 


Compare the position of these women with that of those mentioned in the Acts 
of Peter, supra, pp. 148, 150. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 17 


Agrippina, wife of the prefect Agrippa, resolve to have no 
more intercourse with their husbands. At the preaching of 
Paul, many of: the emperor’s soldiers become soldiers of 
Christ and abandon the army and the palace. | | 

11 Then the people started a seditious uprising and 
Simon was aroused to envy and began to bring accusations 
against Peter, declaring that he was a sorcerer and a cheat. 
And the people wondered at his signs and believed on him, 
for he caused a bronze serpent to move and statues of stone 
to laugh and move, and himself to appear suddenly soaring 
in the air. 

12 And to rival these feats Peter healed the sick with 
a word and gave sight to the blind by prayer and put demons 
to flight at command and even raised the dead... . 

13 And thus it came to pass that all devout men de- 
nounced Simon Magus and called him impious; and the 
followers of Simon contended that Peter was a sorcerer and 
witnessed falsely against him, for many clave to Simon 
Magus. So the report came to Nero Caesar and he ordered 
Simon Magus to be brought before him. 

14-15 [Simon changes shape before Nero and astounds 
him, ‘‘so that he believes him to be the son of God.”” Simon 
also tells Nero that his kingdom will be destroyed if he fails 
to put the apostles to death. | 

16 Then Nero, full of concern, ordered that they should 
be brought speedily before him.**’ And on the following day, 
Simon Magus and Peter and Paul, the apostles of Christ, ap- 
peared before Nero and Simon said: “ These are the disciples 
of the Nazarene, who, unfortunately, are of the Jewish na- 
tion.” Nero said: ‘“‘ What is the Nazarene?” Simon an- 
swered: ‘‘ There is a city of Judaea which has always been 
rebellious against you; it is called Nazareth and the teacher 
of these men came from there.” 


109 The apostles here face the emperor himself, instead of the prefect as in 
the Acts of Peter. Supra, p. 151. 


172 THE SEE OF PETER 


17 Nero said: ‘ God enjoins us to love every man;*° 
why then do you persecute them?” Simon said: ‘‘ The 
race of these men has prevailed upon all Judaea not to 
believe in me. .. .” : 

18 Nero said: ‘“‘ Who is Christ? ” Peter said: “ He is 
the one whom this Simon Magus professes to be... . But, 
noble King, if you wish to learn what was done with Christ 
in Judaea, take this letter of Pontius Pilate, which he sent 
to Claudius, and then you will know it all.” And Nero com- 
manded it to be brought. . . . [Text of the letter.|*”. 

24 Nero said: “Are you not in fear of Simon, who 
confirms his divinity with his deeds? ” Peter replied: “* Di- 
vinity abides with him who reveals the secrets of the heart. 
Let him, therefore, tell me what I am thinking or what I 
am doing. I will impart to your ears some thought of mine, 
before he falsely invents it, so that he may not dare to 
invent my thought.” Nero said: “‘ Come forward, then, and 
tell me what you are thinking!” Peter said: “ Command 
that a barley loaf be brought and given to me secretly!” 
And when he had commanded the bread to be brought and 
delivered to Peter secretly, Peter said: ‘‘ Let Simon tell now 
what was thought, what was said, and what was done!” 

25 Nero said: “ Do you wish me to believe that Simon 


does not know this, when he has raised the dead and been — 


himself beheaded and arisen the third day” and accom- 
plished whatever he said he would do?” Peter answered: 
‘“‘ But he did not do it before me.” Nero said: “‘ But he 
did it all before me; and he bade angels come to him and 
they came.” Peter said: “If he did the greatest thing, 
why does he not do the smallest? Let him tell what I 
thought and what I did!” ... 


110 Tt was certainly a simple soul who put such words into the mouth of 


111 A fabrication, but an early one. Justin Martyr knew what purported to 
be an official report by Pilate on the trial of Christ (I Apology, XXXV) and 
Tertullian a letter written by Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius (Apology, V and 
XXI). 112 Compare the tradition mentioned by Hippolytus, supra, p. 133. 


SN 6 ee a ee a ane 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 173 


26 Simon said: “ Hear this, noble King; no one knows 
the thoughts of men but one, who is God. Is not Peter 
beguiling you? ” Peter said: ‘‘ But you say that you are 
the son of God. Tell me, then, what I have in my thoughts 
and reveal, if you can, what I have done in secret!” For 
Peter had blessed the barley loaf which he had received 
and broken it with his right and left hands and gathered it 
up in his sleeves. 

27 Then Simon was angry because he could not tell the 
secret of the apostle and cried out and said: ‘“ Let great 
dogs come forth and devour him before the face of Caesar!” 
And suddenly great dogs appeared and sprang upon Peter. 
And Peter, stretching out his hands in prayer, showed to the 
dogs the bread which he had blessed; and at that sight, the 
dogs disappeared from their view." ... 

28 Then Nero said to Simon: ‘‘ What of it, Simon? I 
think we have been worsted.”’ Simon replied: “‘ This man 
did these same things to me in Judaea and in all Palestine 
and in Caesarea.” ** ... 

29 Then Nero turned to Paul and said: ‘‘ Why do you 
say nothing, Paul? ” Paul answered and said: “. . . [Pro- 
fession of faith in Christ.]” ... Nero said [to Simon]: 
“‘ Now then, why do you delay and do not prove yourself 
God, that these two may be punished? ” 

30 Simon said: “Command that a high tower of wood 
be built for me and I will mount upon it and summon my 
angels and bid them bear me in the sight of everyone up to 
my Father in heaven. And those who cannot do it will be 
exposed in their folly.” ... 

31-32 |Description of a trick with a slaughtered ram by 
which Simon had previously persuaded Nero that he had 
been beheaded and come to life again the third day. 

33 And when Nero had spoken, . . . he turned to Paul 


113 An instance of magical power attached to the sacramental element. 
114 A reference to the Clementine story. Supra, p. 167. 


174 THE SEE OF PETER 


and said: ‘‘ As for you, Paul, why do you make no sound? 
Who taught you or what teacher did you have? . . .” 

34-38 [Paul answers at length, refuting Simon and re- 
counting his own labors and ethical teachings. | 

39 Nero said: ‘‘ What say you, Peter?’ He answered 
and said: “‘ All that Paul has said is true. For during many 
years I have received letters from our bishops, who are in 
all the Roman world, and the bishops of almost every city 
have written me of his deeds and words.””. . .” 

4t Nero said: ‘“ Paul, what say you? ” Paul answered: 
‘‘What you have heard from Peter believe that I too have 
said; for we are of the same mind, because we have one Lord, 
Jesus the Christ.” ... 

42 Simon said: “I am sparing you until I display to 
you my power.” Paul said: “See to it that you emerge 
hence in safety!”’ Peter said: “ Unless, Simon, you see the 
power of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will not believe you 
yourself are not Christ.”” Simon said: “‘ Most sacred King, 
do not believe them, for they are circumcised knaves.” Paul 
said: ‘‘ Before we knew the truth, we had circumcision of 
the flesh; but since the truth was revealed, we are circum- 
cised and do circumcise in the circumcision of the heart.” 
Peter said: ‘ If circumcision is evil, why were you circum- 
cised, Simon? ” 

43 Nero said: ‘‘ Was Simon also circumcised? ” Peter 
said: “‘ By no other means could he deceive souls, except 
he feigned himself to be a Jew and appeared to teach the 
law of God.” Nero said: ‘“‘ Simon, I perceive you are driven 
by envy to persecute these men. For there seems to me to 
be a great rivalry between you and their Christ and I am 
uneasy lest you be vanquished by them and consumed in 
utter destruction.” ... 


115 This sentence is in the Latin version but not in the Greek. The Roman 
translator aims to make Peter out as already the head and center of an established 
system of bishoprics, covering “all the Roman world.” As the head, he vouches 
for Paul. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 175 


44 Simon said: ‘‘ Christ did not teach Paul.” Paul said: 
“Yes, through a vision he taught me also.” . . . 

47... Nerosaid: “. . . But why doIsay more? You 
three have shown me that your minds are all unstable and 
thus you have made me a doubter among you all, so that 
I find no one whom I may believe.” 

48 Peter said: “ We preach one God the Father, in 
Christ the Savior, with the Holy Spirit, Creator of all 
things, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that 
is therein, who is verily King and of whose kingdom there 
shall be no end.” Nero said: ‘‘ Who is this lord King? ” 
Paul said: ‘‘ The Savior of all nations.”? Simon said: “I 
am he of whom you speak.”? Peter and Paul said: ‘‘ May 
it never be well with you, Simon Magus, full of bitterness!” 

49 Simon said: ‘‘ Hear, Caesar Nero, that you may know 
these men are impostors and I have been sent from heaven; 
for tomorrow I shall ascend to heaven and shall make 
blessed those who believe on me and show my wrath on those 
who have denied me.” Peter and Paul said: ‘ God has 
called us to his own glory; you are called by the devil and 
hasten to punishment.” .. . 

51 Then Nero ordered that a tower be erected on the 
Campus Martius and that all the people and the dignitaries 
be present at the spectacle. And on the next day, when the 
multitude had assembled, Nero commanded Peter and Paul 
to appear before him and said to them: “‘ Now the truth has 
to be made clear!” Peter and Paul said: ‘‘ We do not reveal 
it, but our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom Simon 
has pretended to be.” 

52 And Paul turned to Peter and said: “ It is my part 
to bow the knee and supplicate God and yours to do the 
deed, because you were the first to be chosen by the 
Lord!” *° And, falling on his knees, Paul prayed. And 
Peter, fixing his gaze upon Simon, said: “ Perform what you 


116 An explicit acknowledgment on Paul’s part of Peter’s right to leadership. 


176 THE SEE OF PETER 


have begun; for your exposure is at hand and our summons; 
for I see Christ calling both me and Paul.” 

53 Nero said: “ And whither will you depart against my 
will? ” Peter said: “‘ Wherever our Lord may summon us.” 
Nero said: ‘‘ And who is your lord?” Peter said: “ Jesus 
Christ, whom I see summoning us.” Nero said: “ And will 
you also go away into heaven?” Peter said: “‘ Whenever 
it seems good to him who calls us.” ... 

54 Then Simon ascended the tower before them all and 
stretched forth his hands, with a laurel crown upon his head, 
and began to fly. And Nero, when he saw him flying, said 
to Peter: ‘‘ This Simon is true, but you and Paul are false.” 
And Peter said to him: “‘ Straightway you shall see that we 
are true disciples of Christ and he is no Christ but a sorcerer 
and evildoer.”” Nero said: “ Do you still resist? Lo, behold 
him ascending into heaven! ” 

55 Then Peter, looking toward Paul, said: ‘‘ Paul, look 
up and see!” And Paul looked up, full of tears, and seeing 
Simon flying said: “‘ Peter, why delay? Perform what you 
have in mind; for already our Lord Jesus Christ summons 
us.” And Nero, hearing this, smiled and said: “‘ They see 
themselves defeated and talk wildly.” Peter said: ‘‘ Soon 
you shall see that we are not wild.” And Paul turned and 
said to Peter: “ Perform what you have in mind!” 

56 And Peter, looking upon Simon, said: “ I adjure ye, 
angels of Satan, who bear him in the air to deceive the hearts 
of the faithless, by God, the Creator of all things, and by 
Jesus Christ, whom he raised from the dead on the third day, 
from this hour forth support him no longer but let him go!” 
And immediately he was released and fell upon the place 
called Via Sacra, which is to say Sacred Way, and was broken 
into four pieces, perishing miserably.” 


117 The Latin says, “was broken into four pieces and knit together four 
stones, which remain for a testimony of the victory of the apostles unto this day.” 
This is our first reference to any relic or visible memorial of the Simon Magus 
episode. Others were exhibited during the following centuries. Vide infra, pp. 
200, 206, 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 177 


57 Then Nero commanded that Peter and Paul should 
be put in chains but that the body of Simon should be closely 
watched for three days in the expectation that he would 
rise on the third day.***. . . 

58 Then Nero called Agrippa, the prefect,”® and said 
to him: ‘‘ It is right that worshippers of strange gods should 
be put to death. Wherefore, I am giving commandment 
that they be executed in torment in the Naumachium.” *” 
Agrippa, the prefect, said: ‘‘ Most sacred King, your com- 
mandment is not suited to them both, for Paul seems 
innocent beside Peter.’’ Nero said: “‘ How then shall they 
be put to death? ” Agrippa answered and said: “ It seems 
just to me that Paul should be beheaded and Peter hung 
on across, for he is guilty of murder.” Nero said: “ Your 
judgment is best.” 

59 Then Peter and Paul were led away from the pres- 
ence of Nero. And Paul was beheaded on the Via Ostiensis. 

60 And Peter came to his cross and said: “ Since our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who descended from heaven to earth, 
was lifted erect upon his cross and deigns to call me, who 
am of the earth, to heaven, my cross should be set with head 
to the earth that it may direct my feet to heaven; for I am 
not worthy to be crucified like my Lord.” ‘Then they turned 
his cross about and nailed his feet upward. | 

61 And the multitude gathered together and reviled 
Caesar and were eager to slay him. But Peter prevented 
them, saying: ‘‘ Be not angry against him! ... Fora few 
days since, when Agrippa prepared to attack me, I was pre- 
vailed upon by the brethren and left the city and my Lord 
Jesus Christ met me. And I worshipped him and said to 
him: ‘Lord, whither goest thou?’ And he answered and 


118 Supra, p. 172. 

119 Supra, p. 146. | 

120 A name for the circus of Caligula across the Tiber, at the edge of which 
was later built the church of St. Peter. Supra, p. 104, n. 106. It was often the 
scene of mock naval battles, a highly popular form of public entertainment. 


178 THE SEE OF PETER 


said to me: ‘I am going to Rome to be crucified.’ And I 
said to him: ‘Lord, wast thou not crucified once?’ And 
the Lord answered and said: ‘ I saw that thou wert fleeing 
from death and I am willing to be crucified in thy stead.’ 
And I said: ‘ Lord, I will go; I will fulfil thy behest.’ And 
he said to me: ‘ Fear not, for I am with thee.’ 

62...” And with these words he gave up his spirit 
to the ery 

63 And straightway there sce noble men, strange 
in aspect, and said to one and another: “We have come 
from Jerusalem for the sake of the holy and chief apostle.” 
And together with the illustrious Marcellus . . . they re- 
moved his body secretly and laid it by the terebinth * near 
the Naumachia, in a place called the Vatican. 

65 [A popular uprising takes place against Nero, who 
escapes into the desert and dies of hunger and thirst. His 
body is eaten by wild beasts. |’? 

66 And some devout men from the East attempted to 
carry off the relics of the saints and at once there was a 
great earthquake in the city and the inhabitants of the city 
perceived it and ran and seized them; and the men fled.” 
Then the Romans took the bodies and laid them in a 


place three miles from the city; and they were kept there. 


under guard one year and seven months, until the place 


121 Jesus’ words are reproachful in this version of the story. Cf. supra, 
p. 151 and n. 78. 

122 The medieval guidebooks or Mirabilia of the city of Rome applied the 
name Terebinth to a great mausoleum, similar in shape to Hadrian’s tomb, which 
stood beside the Via Triumphalis, near the circus of Caligula, here called the 
Naumachia, and which was demolished during the Renaissance in order that its 
marbles might be used to build the steps and court of the new St. Peter’s. For 
a Renaissance representation of Peter’s crucifixion with the Terebinth in the fore- 
ground see R. A. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, p. 272. 

122a This is the Greek version. The Latin version is tempered by more re- 
gard for history, for at Rome it would hardly have done to perpetrate such out- 
rageous fiction. According to it, Nero was condemned to death by the Romans 
and fled, and some persons said he was eaten by beasts. 

123 Pope Gregory I speaks of an attempt on the part of Oriental Christians 
to steal away the bodies of the apostles from the chamber ‘‘ad catacumbas,” 
where they had been lying. Epistolae, IV, 30. Supra, pp. 106, 108. The Latin 
version of the next sentence reads: “and laid them in a place which is called 
Catacumba on the Via Appia, at the third milestone.” 


| 
| 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 179 


was built in which they were to be buried. And afterwards 
they all assembled with glory and hymns and buried them 
in the place built for them.**”* 


ACTS OF PETER AND PAUL 


Acta Petri et Pauli. Text. Acta A postolorum Apocrypha, 
ed. by R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, I, 178-222. 


[The Jews in Rome hear that Paul is on his way thither 
to be tried before Caesar and appeal to Nero to forbid it. 
Paul, they say, has done enough harm already among their 
people in Judaea and Samaria, and Peter is a disturbance 
now at Rome. Nero promises to write to all the magistrates 
in the provinces to seize Paul before he can reach Italy. | 

And while this was taking place, some converts from 
the gentiles, who had been baptized through the preaching 
of Peter, sent priests to Paul with a letter which ran as 
follows: “To Paul, the noble servant of our master Jesus 
Christ and brother of Peter, the first of the apostles. We 
have heard from the leaders of the Jews who are here in 
Rome, the capital city, that they have requested Nero to 
send word into all his provinces to have you put to death, 
- wherever you are found. But we have trusted and do trust 
that as God does not divide the two great lights which he 
created, so he may not permit you to be separated from each 
other, that is Peter from Paul, or Paul from Peter. . . .” 

[Paul sets out from the island of Melita and journeys 
by slow stages, with sundry adventures, to Rome. He is 
entertained on the way by bishops and deacons ordained by 
Peter and is met at the Three Taverns by disciples sent from 
Peter to greet him. The Jews, hearing that he has arrived, 
are much perturbed and come to urge him to oppose the 

128a Latin version: “and the body of the holy Peter was laid in the Vatican 


by the Naumachia and that of the holy Paul on the Via Ostiensis, at the second 
milestone.” 


180 THE SEE OF PETER 


teaching of Peter and his disparagement of the law. Peter 
and Paul meet with rejoicing and both make addresses to the 
Jews.*** The wives of Nero and Agrippa are converted by 
Peter and many soldiers and courtiers by Paul. Even the 
emperor’s tutor becomes Paul’s friend.*”® , 

Simon Magus appears, and he and Peter work miracles 
in competition. Simon goes before Nero and by changing 
shapes convinces Nero that he is truly “ the son of God.” 
Peter, Paul and Simon hold their argument in Nero’s 
presence. Simon starts to fly in the air but falls and is 
dashed to pieces at the apostles’ prayers. Nero proposes 
to Agrippa to put all men like Peter and Paul to death 
also. | 

They beheaded Paul at the spot called Aquae Salviae,”** 
near the pine tree. 

[Story of Perpetua. Peter is taken to be crucified. He 
tells of leaving Rome and meeting Christ coming into the 
city.| And I worshipped him and said: “ Lord, whither 
goest thou? ” And he said to me: “ Follow me, for I go 
to Rome to be crucified again.” And while I followed him, 
I returned again into Rome. And he said to me: “ Fear 
not, for I am with thee until I lead thee to my Father’s 
house.” | 

| Martyrdom of Perpetua after the burial of Peter. Men 
from the East steal away the apostles’ bodies. The Romans, 
aroused by an earthquake, overtake them] in a place called 
Catacumbae,’”” on the Via Appia, at the third milestone 


124 The narrative from this point is similar to the preceding but briefer. Here 
and there a few new details are added. 

125 An apocryphal correspondence between Paul and Seneca was the invention 
of the early fourth century. 

126 The ancient name of the springs, now called Tre Fontane, which lie an 
hour’s walk beyond the Porta San Paolo and are the traditional scene of Paul’s 
execution. A memorial chapel was built there during the fifth century, the foun- 
dations of which have been descried beneath the present seventeenth century edi- 
fice. In 1875, the Trappist monks excavating behind the chapel found a mass of 
coins of the reign of Nero, lying together with some fossilized pine cones. R. A. 
Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 156-157. 

127 On the association of the apostles’ bodies with the crypt Ad Catacumbas, 
vide supra, pp. 106, 108, 109. 


ee a ae a ee ra 


a A al 


Pent’ 


——  - 


ee ee eT 


a 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 181 


from the city; and the bodies of the saints were kept there 
under guard for one year and six months, until the places 
were constructed where they were to be buried. And the 
body of the holy Peter was interred with glory and hymns 
in the place of the Vatican, near the Naumachium, and the 
body of the holy Paul on the Via Ostiensis, two miles from 
the city. 


6. REFERENCES TO THE PETRINE LEGEND BY THE FATHERS 
OF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES 


The following group of nine selections, taken from the writings 
of the most respected leaders in the Church of the fourth and fifth 
centuries, in widely separated regions of the Roman Empire, 
is evidence of the final acceptance of the main features of the 
apocryphal legend of Peter and Simon Magus and of the serious- 
ness with which it was generally treated thenceforth until the 
revival of the more critical scholarship of the later Middle 
Ages.**® Even here, however, one may remark some difference 
in the attitude of the Fathers toward it. No one actually disputes 
it, but Eusebius, with a discriminating sense sharpened by much 
comparing and weighing of documents for his History, cannot 
bring himself to repeat the improbable literal details. He knows 
that the Acts of Peter are spurious;*”® still he cannot disregard 
the contributions of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus to the making 
of the story. He supposes there is something at the bottom of 
it but cannot decide precisely what. So he compromises by 
shrouding the whole affair in a veil of highsounding, mixed meta- 
phor. Peter is the victorious general of God, bearing the rich 
merchandise of light to the West, to overcome Simon, the “ base 
destroyer of life,” but the nature of the victory won by the 
merchandise is not explained.**° Augustine also gives one the im- 


128 See also Jerome’s allusion to Simon Magus in his brief life of Peter. Supra, 


a 

129 Supra, p. 120. | 

130 Both before and after his handling of this special topic Eusebius relates 
clearly and definitely what he has been able to ascertain of the later careers of the 

other apostles. It is only when he reaches Peter and Simon Magus that he plunges 

into a cloud of mystifying language, to emerge as he passes to the next subject. 


a THE SEE OF PETER 


pression of not committing himself. He describes the Simonian 
heresy as outlined by Irenaeus and Hippolytus but dispenses with 
the sensational incidents of the legend. Perhaps they struck his 
acute mind as too crude and incongruous. At any rate he limits 
himself to the mere statement that Simon was destroyed by Peter 
at Rome. But these two men are the exceptions. Otherwise, 
the most learned, like Theodoret, and the most lofty-minded, 
like Ambrose, repeat the legend as genuine history and confidently 
draw from it their morals and conclusions. 

There is a difference to be observed also in the versions of 
the legend adopted by the several Fathers. Cyril of Jerusalem 
is the first to bring Paul distinctly into his narrative and prove 
thereby an acquaintance with the Acts of the two apostles. 
Sulpicius Severus, the Gaul, is another who relies upon some 
recension of the double legend and credits Paul with a share in 
Simon’s defeat. The rest mention only Peter. They may, of 
course, have known only the Acts of Peter or they may have 
preferred it to the version that included Paul. The most in- 
fluential of our authors are among the six who omit Paul 
altogether. 

Eusebius’ Church History, the first book from which we quote, 
is already familiar.*** Cyril was priest, in the year 348, in the 
church at Jerusalem, which, after the favor shown it under Con- 
stantine and the rise of the custom of making pilgrimages to holy 
places, had rapidly increased in size and wealth. In Lent of that 
year, Cyril delivered a series of twenty-three addresses to the 
catechumens who were being prepared for baptism at Easter. 
The addresses dealt with the elements of Christian faith and 
refuted the most dangerous theories of paganism and the leading 
heretical sects. They were composed with such pains and care, 
in so clear and orderly a style, that they have ever since been 
looked upon as models of religious exposition and throw much 
light on third-century liturgy and dogma in the East. The pass- 
age given below is from Cyril’s survey of the original rise of 
heresy in the Church. It has a hortatory tone, appropriate to 
the audience for which it was meant. 


131 Supra, pp. 96-098. 


i | 
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THE PETRINE TRADITION 183 


Our first western writer is Ambrose, bishop of Milan, the 
protagonist of his generation in the struggle of the ecclesiastical 
organization against domination by the State. Ambrose, as the 
reader may remember, was chosen in 374, in an outburst of 
popular relief and enthusiasm, to fill the chair of Auxentius, the 
Arian *** bishop of Milan, although until that time he had held 
nothing but civil office under the government and was actually 
no more than an unbaptized catechumen in the Church. One 
week after his baptism, he was consecrated bishop and found 
himself contending against discord and weakness within his flock 
and a capricious imperial power without. Gratian, who was 
western emperor from 375 to 383 and for whom Ambrose wrote 
two books to explain the orthodox dogma of the Trinity, was 
devoted to him. But after Gratian’s assassination, the youthful 
Valentinian II was at first influenced by his mother to support 
the Arian faction, who thereupon set up a rival bishop and de- 
manded that Ambrose be deposed. In 386, Valentinian issued 
something in the way of an ultimatum, ordering Ambrose either 
to appear at court to defend his right to the bishopric or to sur- 
render the church property without more ado and retire from 
Milan. Ambrose refused to make either move, maintaining that 
it was his duty to stay by his church and that no earthly force 
could override it. The sermon which he preached in his cathedral 
during the crisis to make clear his position and encourage his 
terrified people has been preserved, and from it we quote one of 
the examples which he gives of frailty made strong to endure 


132 We shall hear much of the Arian party later in our book. Suffice it here 
to say that it arose during the period when the attention of the Church was in- 
tensely occupied with the effort to define the nature cf Christ and his relation to 
the Father. The twofold problem invariably confronting the disputants was how 
to keep Christ human and yet exalt him above other teachers of humanity to the 
height of complete divinity and, on the other hand, how to make him uncreated 
God, distinct in person from the Father, and yet preserve the monotheistic prin- 
ciple; or, in other words, how to avoid the Gnostic or Docetic or Monarchian 
position, which deprived Christ of human personality and interpreted the historic 
Jesus as a phantom or as pure deity in disguise, without lapsing either into a 
denial of his perfect godhead or into polytheism. The orthodox dogma of the 
Trinity, as embodied in creeds like the Athanasian, still in common use, was an 
attempt to reconcile these apparently irreconcilable phases of the dilemma. The 
Arian party took the ground that to call the Son, as the orthodox did, “ very God 
of very God, .. . not created, of one substance with the Father,” was tantamount 
to setting up two gods. They insisted that Christ, though of divine substance, was 
a created being and essentially subordinate to the eternal Father. On the rise of 
the Arian controversy under Constantine, vide infra, p. 467. 


184 THE SEE OF PETER 


peril, the Quo Vadis story of the Petrine legend.**? Ambrose’s 
steadfastness saved his cause. Valentinian gave way and shortly 
afterward accepted Ambrose’s advice on the stand to be taken 
against those members of the Roman Senate who were agitating 
for the restoration of the altar of Victory, which Gratian had 
removed from its ancient place in the Senate House. When he 
felt his personal safety threatened by conspiracies in Gaul, Val- 
entinian sent for Ambrose to come to him but sent too late, for 
midway on his journey Ambrose was intercepted by the news of 
the emperor’s murder. 

About this same time, Ambrose came into contact with 
Theodosius the Great, the governor for a few years of the whole 
Roman world. In 388, he persuaded him to withdraw a harsh 
edict for the punishment of some Mesopotamian Christians who 
had destroyed a Jewish synagogue, and in 390, he compelled him 
to do solemn penance before the church at Milan for the hasty 
massacre of his riotous subjects at Thessalonica. In the difficult 
situation in which the church then found herself, alternately 
spoiled and badgered by rulers who came and went, Ambrose set 
a stimulating precedent of spiritual independence and fearless- 
ness, which was not forgotten, even when it was not followed. 
In the intervals of his busy life, he found time to compose a 
number of hymns and works on moral and religious subjects for 
his people’s use. His most famous set of commentaries on a 
Biblical text were the nine homilies on the six days of creation 


that were called the Hexaemeron, written in the allegorical, 4 


imaginative style of Origen.** From them we cite a few lines 
on the prowess of Peter and Paul, in which an episode from the 
New Testament is put beside one from the apocryphal Acts, 
with no distinction of authenticity drawn between one and 
the other. 

Of the life of Philaster, bishop of Brescia, one of Ambrose’s 
colleagues in northern Italy, nothing is known but the fact that 
about 383, he produced a manual of one hundred and fifty-six 
different kinds of heresies, past and current, with a concise 

133 The same sermon contains some telling passages on the relation of civil 


authority to ecclesiastical. 
134 Supra, p. 87; infra, p. 317. 


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ee ee ee a es 


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, 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 185 


description of the most conspicuous tenets of each. The subject 
was timely in an age when theological controversies rent the air 
more vociferously than ever, and the task of expressing the gospel 
in a series of accurate, metaphysical terms, which might serve 
aS a permanent standard of correct belief, seemed occasionally 
hopeless. Philaster appears to have taken his idea from the 
Syntagma, a smaller compilation by Hippolytus,**** now lost, of 
which his own was an enlargement and continuation. The first 
heresy, in his catalogue, to arise after the death of Christ, was 
that of Simon Magus, exposed and vanquished like its founder 
by ‘‘ the blessed apostle.” 

At almost the same time, another manual of heresies was 
drawn up in the East by Epiphanius, the metropolitan bishop 
of Cyprus, who concentrated the fervor of his life on the prac- 
tice and preaching of asceticism and the ceaseless combat with 
heterodoxy. His particular detestations were Arianism and the 
broad, philosophic Christianity of Origen.**° To him also Simon 
Magus was the first heretic of the Christian era, the first to 
misuse the name of Christ. 

Sulpicius Severus, our next author, was a noble Aquitanian, 
educated in the law, who renounced his wealth and profession 
at the death of his wife and the preaching of St. Martin of Tours 
and chose a life of monastic solitude and poverty. Beside his 
famous Life of St. Martin, he composed a Chronicle of religious 
history, beginning with an outline of the events of the Old Tes- 
tament and going on to narrate briefly the development of the 
Church to the year 400. He wrote in a grave and tempered style, 
modelled upon the histories of Sallust and Tacitus. The conflict 
of Peter and Paul with Simon seemed to him an affair of sufficient 
importance to be included in his sketch of the rise of Christianity 
at Rome. 

We cannot stop here long enough to attempt a characteriza- 
tion of the great Augustine, the pupil of Ambrose, who became 
bishop of the city of Hippo in the province of Africa, the man 
whose thought and experience shaped the outlook and moulded 
the faith of the western Church down to our own day. Here we 


134a Qn Hippolytus vide infra, pp. 297 ff. 135 Supra, pp. 88-89. 


186 THE SEE OF PETER 


are concerned only with one of his controversial letters and with 
a minor treatise, written about 428, near the end of his life, in 
response to a request from a Carthaginian deacon, named Quod- 
vultdeus, that he should prepare a textbook on the vexed subject 
of heresies. Augustine referred the inquirer to the existing 
treatises of Epiphanius and Philaster but Quodvultdeus replied 
that he desired something more concise and definite. Augustine 
thereupon goodhumoredly prepared a summary of eighty-eight 
heresies, not much unlike the despised manuals of his prede- 
cessors, save for its greater brevity, and opening, as theirs did, 
with Simon Magus. He intended to conclude the summary with 
a discussion of the fundamental nature of heresy and of the 
question, what made a man a heretic, but this latter part he never 
finished. Our citations are of interest chiefly because they show 
that Augustine, like his contemporaries, endorsed the Petrine 
legend, though in distinctly guarded terms. 

Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, a small town in Northern Syria, 
two days’ travel from Antioch, is now remembered principally 
for the Church History he wrote about 450, to carry on the work 
of Eusebius. In his own day, however, he was better known for 
his indefatigable exertions on behalf of harmony and orthodoxy 
in the Church. In 4409, he wrote to Pope Leo: “ with the aid of 
divine grace I have cleansed more than one thousand souls from 
the poison of Marcion and from the sectarianism of Arius and 
Eunomius.*** I have led back many others to Christ the Lord.” 


In the struggles of the fifth century to perfect a creed that would 


sufficiently refute one error without falling backward into its 
opposite, in the wranglings of bishops, synods and councils, he 
took an active part and was even forced at one time to spend a 
year in exile for opposing too stoutly the Monophysite faction,**’ 
headed by the patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople. No 
wonder that after his return from exile he too felt called upon 


_ 186 On Marcion vide infra, pp. 258; 266, n. 65; 272. On Arius and Eunomius 
supra, p. 183, N. 132; infra, pp. 467-468. 

137 The Monophysites occupied a position midway between the Gnostics and 
the orthodox. They held that Christ was truly God incarnate in the flesh but that 
his nature was always and solely divine. The orthodox insisted that he had taken 
on himself a human nature as well as the human garment of flesh. Between 
Monophysites on one side and Arians on the other, the orthodox of the period 
were hard pressed. : 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 187 


to compile a Compendium of Heretical Tales, beginning as 
usual with the arch heretic Simon Magus and closing with a 
sketch of what he regarded as the true faith of the Church. He 
wrote with a touch of Eusebius’ figurative imagination. Simon 
was the symbol of the darkness of evil teachings in the Church, 
and his overthrow by Peter was tthe scattering of that darkness by 
the radiance of truth. 

Extracts like these are given, as we have said, mainly in order 
to show the way in which the legend of Peter was eventually 
accepted by the influential spokesmen, even of the orthodox 
circles. During this same period, the claim of the Papacy to 
superlative rights was for the first time being urged with per- 
sistency and to an increasing extent formally acknowledged. The 
part which the legend, as distinct from the legitimate tradition, 
played in fortifying this claim or in bringing about its acknowl- 
edgment is indeed quite impossible to estimate. One may form 
a vague conjecture from the few hints which will appear now 
and then in those sections of our book that trace the growth of 
papal power, as far as that process is revealed in surviving docu- 
ments."** The effect, however, of so widespread a legend, repeated 
and confirmed by leading theologians, on the mind of the ordi- 
nary priest and lay member in making him ready to acquiesce in 
a claim based upon Peter’s exceptional achievements and author- 
ity is the sort of thing that is never fully disclosed in records 
such as these. None the less some allowance should reasonably 
be made for it in an attempt to account for the rise of the 
Petrine See to its final preéminence. 


On these authors, see the standard dictionaries and histories of Christian 
literature and biography already cited; also J. Mader, Der heilige Cyrillus, 
Bischof von Jerusalem in seinem Leben und seinen Schriften (Einsiedeln, 
1891); E., Duc de Broglie, St. Ambroise (4th ed., Paris, 1901); A. Largent, 
St. Ambroise in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (8 vols., Paris, 1909- 
1910), Vol. I, 942-951; F. van Ortroy, St. Ambroise et l’empereur Théodose, 
Analecta Bollandiana (Paris, 1904), Vol. XXIII, pp. 417, 426; R. A. Lipsius, 
Die Quellen der dltesten Ketzergeschichte (Leipzig, 1875); Th. Zahn, Ge- 
schichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons (3 pts. in 2, Erlangen, 1881-1884), 
Pt. II, 1, 233-239; H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus (2 pts. in 1, Leipzig, 


138 Infra, pp. 235 ff. 


188 THE SEE OF PETER 


1880-1898), Pt. II, pp. 107-121 (on Sulpicius Severus); J. McCabe, St. 
Augustine and his Age (London, 1903); J. Martin, St. Augustin (Paris, 
tgo1); A. Hatzfeld, St. Augustin (6th ed., Paris, 1901); Th. Specht, Die 
Lehre von der Kirche nach dem heilige Augustin (Paderborn, 1892); G. 
Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme (3rd ed., 2 vols., Paris, 1908), Vol. II, pp. 
291 sgqg. and passim. 


EUSEBIUS 
(c. 265-c. 340) 
Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 13: 1, 2,6; 14: 1-6. Text. Euse- 
bius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 
der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), Il’, 132-134, 136-138. 


II 13 But faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ being 
now spread abroad among all men, the enemy of man’s 


salvation devised a plot for seizing the imperial city for 


himself. He brought thither the aforesaid Simon, assisted 
him in his crafty wiles and led many of the inhabitants of 
Rome astray and into his own power. This is related by 
Justin, one of the distinguished writers among us, who lived 
not long after the time of the apostles. ... [Quotation 
from Justin Martyr.’ Reference to Irenaeus.“°| Indeed 
we ourselves have understood that Simon was the original 
author of all heresy. ... [Description of the Simonian 
heresy. | 


14 The evil power that hates what is good and plots — q 


against man’s salvation produced at that time Simon, the 
father and author of this great wickedness, as if to oppose 
him as a mighty antagonist against the noble and inspired 
apostles of our Savior. But that divine and heavenly grace 
which works with its ministers, by their arrival and strength 
extinguished speedily the rising flame of evil and humbled 
and cast down through them ‘“‘ every high thing that exalted 
itself against the knowledge of God.” ** Wherefore, neither 
139 This quotation is given supra, p. 130. 


140 The reference is to the passage cited supra, p. 131. 
141 JJ Corinthians, X, 5. 


ee eee eT ee ee ON ee ey LO Te ee 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 189 


the conspiracy of Simon nor that of any other man who 
arose in that age could avail anything in the lifetime of the 
apostles. For everything was conquered and subdued by 
the splendor of the truth and the divine Word, which had 
lately come to shine from God upon men and was potent 
then in the earth and dwelling in those same apostles. The 
said impostor was early smitten in the eyes of his mind by 
a divine and miraculous flash and after his malice had been 
once detected by the apostle Peter in Judaea, he fled and 
journeyed a long way across the sea from the East to the 
West, thinking that by such a course he could live according 
to his will. And he came to the city of Rome by the strong 
aid of that power which was lying there in wait for him and 
-shortly he succeeded so well in his enterprise that the in- 
habitants honored him as a god by the erection of a statue. 
But this situation did not continue long, for straightway, 
during the reign of the same Claudius, the all good and 
benevolent Providence, that watches over all things, led 
Peter, the strongest and greatest of the apostles,” who on 
account of his valor was spokesman for all the rest, to Rome 
against this base destroyer of life. He, like a noble general 
of God, clad in divine armor, carried the rich merchandise 
of spiritual light from the East to the dwellers in the West, 
heralding the same light and the Word, which is the salvation 
of souls, and the tidings of the kingdom of heaven. 


CYRIL OF JERUSALEM 
(c. 315-C. 386) 
Catecheses, VI, 14, 15. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Graeca, XX XIII, 561-564. 
14 And the inventor of all heresy was Simon Magus, the 


Simon who in the Acts of the Apostles thought to buy with 


142 Peter of Alexandria had already called Peter “the first of the apostles,” 
Supra, p. 94. 


190 THE SEE OF PETER 


his silver the unpurchasable grace of the Spirit and heard 
the words: “ Thou hast neither part nor lot in this mat- 
ter,”*** and so on. Of him it was written: ‘They went 
out from us but they were not of us; for if they had been 
of us they would have remained with us.” ** And he, after 
he had been rejected by the apostles, went to Rome, taking 
with him one Helena, a harlot, and he was the first who 
dared say with blasphemous tongue that it was himself that 
appeared upon Mount Sinai as the Father, that afterward 
showed himself among the Jews not in flesh but in outward 
shape as Christ Jesus and that still later came as the Holy 
Ghost, whom Christ had promised to send to be a comforter. 
And he deluded the city of Rome so completely that Claudius 
erected a statue of him and inscribed under it in the Roman 
tongue: “Simoni Deo Sancto,” which, being interpreted, 
means: ‘‘ To Simon, the holy God.” 

15 And as the delusion was spreading far and wide, 
Peter and Paul, a noble pair, the leaders of the Church, 
arrived and corrected the error and when the supposititious 
god was displaying himself, they quickly displayed him as 
a corpse. For Simon proclaimed that he would ascend into 
heaven and on a chariot of demons he was rising into the air. 
But the servants of God fell upon their knees, practicing the 
harmony of which Jesus spoke: ‘‘ If two of you shall agree | 
as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done 
for them.” *** They launched the weapon of their agreement 
In prayer against Magus and brought him down to earth. 
And marvellous though it was, it was no marvel. For it 
was Peter, who carries the keys of heaven.” And again 
no marvel, for it was Paul, who was “ caught up to the third 
heaven and heard Peace: words, which it is not lawful 
for a man to utter.” **’ 


143 Acts, VIII, 18-21. 144 J John, II, 19. 145 Matthew, XVIII, 109. 

146 Tn another address, Cyril speaks of Peter as “prince of the apostles and 
chief herald of the Church.” Catecheses, XI, 3. 

147 JJ Corinthians, XII, 2, 4. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION IQI 


AMBROSE 


(c. 340-397) 
Sermo contra Auxentium: De Basilicis Tradendis, 13. Text. 
J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XVI, 1053. 


13 The same Peter afterwards, when he had overcome 
Simon and was planting the seeds of the word of God among 
the people and preaching chastity, stirred the minds of the 
gentiles to resentment. And when they sought to seize him, 
the Christians besought him to leave them for a little while. 
And although he was eager for his passion, yet the spectacle 
of the people entreating him prevailed upon him, for they 
begged him to save himself in order to establish and 
strengthen them. What then? By night he set forth to 
pass outside the walls and saw Christ coming to meet him 
in the gate and entering the city. He said: ‘“ Lord, whither 
goest thou?” Christ replied: “‘ I am come to be crucified 
a second time.” Peter understood that the Lord’s answer 
had reference to his own cross, for Christ could not be 
crucified a second time, since in undergoing his passion and 
death he had put off the flesh. ‘‘ For in that he dies unto 
sin, he died once; in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” ™ 
Therefore Peter understood that Christ must be crucified a 
second time in his poor servant. So willingly he returned 
again and made answer to the Christians who questioned 
him and being apprehended shortly afterward, he honored 
the Lord Jesus in his cross. 


In Hexaemeron, IV, 8. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesi- 
asticorum Latinorum, XXXII, 139. 


Thus Paul blinded Elymas, the sorcerer, not only through 
the weakening of his art of prophecy but also by the dark- 


148 Romans, VI. Io. 


192 THE SEE OF PETER 


ening of his eyes.” Thus Peter brought down Simon, who 
was soaring in magic flight to the heights of the sky, and 
undid the strength of his incantations and destroyed him. 


PHILASTER OF BRESCIA 
(d. before 397) 


Diversarum Hereseon Liber, 29. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XX XVIII, 14-15. 


Then after the passion of our Lord Christ and his 
ascent into heaven, there appeared one Simon Magus, a 
Samaritan by birth, from Githo, a village in Samaria that 
bears this name. And he applied himself to magic arts and 
deceived many, saying that he was the power of God, which, 
he asserted, was superior to all other powers. And the 
Samaritans revere him as their father and extol him as the 
founder of their pernicious heresy and seek to glorify him 
with highsounding praise. Although he was baptized by 
the blessed apostles, he abandoned their faith and taught 
an abominable and dangerous heresy, declaring that he had 
undergone a presumptive transformation, that is, in form, 
and thus had suffered, although he said he was not suffer- 
ing? . .. [Brief account of the Simonian heresy.] And — 
after he had fled from the city of Jerusalem before the 
blessed apostle Peter and was come to Rome, he was van- 
quished entirely by the prayer of the blessed apostle and 
let fall by his angel and thus he perished as he deserved, 
so that his sorcery and lies were openly manifest to all men. 

149 Acts, XIII, 6-12. 


150 An allusion to the Gnostic theory that Christ felt no physical pain upon 
the cross. Supra, p. 77, n. 39. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 193 


EPIPHANIUS OF CYPRUS 


(c. 315-403) 
Adversus Haereses (Panarion), XXI, 1,5. Text. Ed. by 
K. Holl (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte, I, 238, 244. 


1 Beginning with the time of Christ and coming down to 
the present day, the first heresy is that of Simon Magus. 
It is one of those which has a wrong and sacrilegious faith in 
the name of Christ and which is adroit to devise corruption. 
This Simon was a sorcerer and came from the town of Githo 
in Samaria, which now is but a village. And he deceived the 
Samaritan nation with his magic arts, hoodwinking and en- 
snaring them. For he said that he was the mighty power of 
God and had descended from heaven. And to the Samaritans 


a he said he was the Father and to the Jews he said he was the 


Son and had suffered and not suffered, but suffered in appear- 
ance only. . . . [The Simonian philosophy. The encounter 
with the apostles in Judaea. | 

5... But why after a season is he to be seen sub- 
mitting in his turn to fate at Rome, when in a concourse of 
the Roman people he fell down wretchedly and died? With 
what words did Peter convict him of having no part or share 
in the lot of the godly? 


SULPICIUS SEVERUS 
(c. 363-C. 425) 
Chronica, II, 28, 4-5; 29, 3-4. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, I, 83. 


28 ... Forat that time [the reign of Nero] the religion 
of God was gathering strength at Rome. Peter was holding 
the office of bishop there and Paul, after he had appealed 


194 THE SEE OF PETER" 


to Caesar from the unjust judgment of the governor, was 
brought to Rome. And many assembled to hear him and 
comprehended the truth and were moved by the powers of 
the apostles, which they then frequently displayed, and 
joined in the worship of God. For then took place that 
famous contest of Peter and Paul with Simon. He with the 
aid of his magic arts had been flying in the air, supported 
by two demons, in order to prove himself God. But the 
demons were put to flight by the prayers of the apostles 
and he fell to the ground in the sight of the people and was 
broken to pieces. 

29... Then Peter and Paul were condemned to death. 
The former was beheaded with the sword and Peter was 
lifted up upon: a cross. 


AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO 


(354-430) 
De Haeresibus, 1,1. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, 
XLII, 25-26. 


The Simonians were disciples of Simon Magus, who was 
baptized by the deacon Philip, as we read in the Acts of 
the Apostles,*”. . . and, in addition, he tried to make him- 


self accepted as Jupiter and one Helen, a harlot, whom > 


he had associated with him in his crimes, as Minerva. And 
he presented images of himself and of this harlot to his 
disciples for adoration and by public permission set them up 


at Rome as images of the gods. And in that city the apostle 


Peter overthrew him by the true power of omnipotent God. 


Epistolae, XXXVI,” ix, 21-22. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XXXIV’, 2, 50-51. 


151 Acts, VIII, 9-13. ; 

152 This letter was written in reply to a polemical treatise, advocating the cus- 
tom peculiar to Rome and a few other western communities of keeping fast on 
Saturday. The treatise itself we know only by this rebuttal of it. 


- tse ‘ 5 - : i 
Se a ee a 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 195 


“ Peter,” he says, ‘‘ the head of the apostles, the door- 
keeper of heaven and the foundation of the Church, after he 
had destroyed Simon, who, being the image of the devil, was 
only to be overcome by fasting, taught this very custom to 
the Romans, whose faith is proclaimed to all the world.” 
Then did the rest of the apostles teach the Christians in all 
the world to dine [on that day] in opposition to Peter? 
Peter and his fellow disciples lived together in harmony and 
in harmony do the Saturday fasters, instituted by Peter, and 
the Saturday diners, instituted by his fellow disciples, live 
together now. There is, indeed, a very common opinion, 
although many Romans consider it false, that when the 
apostle Peter was expecting to contend with Simon Magus 
on the Lord’s day, he fasted the day before in company with 
the church of the city because of the danger of that great 
trial and after he had achieved that happy and glorious 
victory, maintained the same custom and that some of the 
churches of the West copied it. But if, as this author says, 
Simon Magus was an image of the devil, then he is certainly 
not a Saturday nor a Sunday but a daily tempter. .. . 

But if he replies that James at Jerusalem and John at 
Ephesus and the others in other places did teach the same 
practice that Peter taught at Rome, namely, of keeping fast 
on Saturday, but that the other countries have strayed from 
this teaching and that Rome had persisted steadfastly in it, 
and if again we answer that some places in the West, where 
Rome is, have not preserved it as a tradition from the 
apostles and that the countries of the East, where the gospel 
itself was first preached, have continued without any diver- 
gence in the belief that all the apostles, including Peter him- 
self, taught that fast was not to be kept on Saturday, then 
the argument becomes endless and stirs up antagonism and 
opens countless questions. 


196 THE SEE OF PETER 


THEODORET OF CYRUS 
(c. 393-458) 


Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium, I. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LX XXIII, 341-344. 


First of all, Simon Magus, the Samaritan, appeared as 
a minister of the devil’s machinations. ... [Account of 
Simon’s origin and activities in Palestine.| But the grace 
of God armed great Peter against his mad spirit. For he 
followed him about and scattered his evil doctrine like a 
cloud of darkness and revealed the radiance of the light of 
truth. Nevertheless, though openly convicted of falsehood, 
the wretch did not cease to struggle against the truth and 
went to Rome in the reign of Claudius Caesar. And he so 
amazed the Romans by his tricks that they honored him with 
a statue of bronze. But the divine Peter in turn arrived 
also and stripped him of his plumes of deceit. At length, 
he challenged him to a contest of miraculous power and 
exhibited the difference between divine grace and wizardry. 
In the sight of all the Romans, he brought him down by 
prayer from a great height and won to salvation the spec- 
tators of the prodigy. 


7. LATER ELABORATIONS OF THE LEGEND 


In concluding this brief survey of the appearance and rise 
of the apocryphal legend of Peter at Rome, first to a dubious 
notoriety and eventually to the respectable rank of genuine 
history, it seems desirable to add a few words on the later 
amplifications of this legend after the fourth century and on 
the material evidences of it that were from time to time pro- 
duced within the locality, some of which are pointed out to this 
day, although they probably no longer excite the same simple- 
minded awe. 


eee ee ee ee 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 197 


Our first document is the Apostolic Constitutions, a lineal 
descendant of the third century Didascalia or Teachings of the 
Apostles, from which we have already quoted,’ and framed 
upon the same general model. Like the Teachings, it was written 
in Syria and in Greek, but at the end of the fourth century or at 
the beginning of the fifth. Like the Teachings also, it describes 
the contemporary beliefs and practices of the eastern church, 
while purporting to be a report of the deliberations of the 
first apostles, met together for counsel in Jerusalem. It informs 
us that Clement of Rome was attending in the name of the 
apostles to the distribution of the report among the bishops and 
priests of the Church. The last book of the Constitutions, which 
has no counterpart in the Teachings, contains miscellaneous ma- 
terial, such as formulae for ordinations to ecclesiastical offices, 
explanations of the liturgy of the mass, closing with eighty-five 
“ ecclesiastical canons of the holy apostles.” Of these the first 
fifty were translated by Dionysius Exiguus early in the sixth 
century and placed at the head of his collection of ancient church 
canons, whence they were taken over by the author of the pseudo- 
Isidorean Decretals of the ninth century. In the twelfth century, 
they were incorporated by Gratian in his Decretum, where they 
still stand among the organic law of the Church. The body of 
the Constitutions, however, from which these canons were 
plucked, was condemned by the Council of 692 as tainted with 
heretical opinion and soon disappeared from general notice and 
circulation. Our principal extract is from the description given 
by Peter to his fellow apostles of his own triumph over heresy. 

Our second document, the Martyrdom of Peter, is an enlarged 
and florid version of the latter part of the Acts of Peter,*** cover- 
ing the events at Rome after the destruction of Simon Magus. 
A Gnostic or ascetic feeling betrays itself more plainly than in 
any other recension we have seen. Peter preaches chastity far 
more vehemently than he preaches Christianity and is denounced 
in the Senate for separating wives from husbands. Suspended 
from the cross, head downward, he maintains his complete 
superiority to fleshly weakness. He delivers calmly two long, 


153 Supra, Pp. 154, 156. 154 Supra, Pp. 133; 150. 


198 THE SEE OF PETER 


mystical harangues and two rhetorical prayers and does not die 
until he has wound up his discourse. Lipsius, who edits this 
work along with the other apocryphal Acts, puts its date in the 
third or fourth century. Other scholars, however, set it later. 
Guignebert suggests the fifth century and Harnack the sixth. 
The enthusiasm for a monastic or celibate life, which mounted 
rapidly after the fourth century, may partly account for the 
extraordinary emphasis laid upon contempt of the body. To 
invest this new Martyrdom at once with an authority comparable 
to that of the works ascribed to Clement, it was foisted upon 
Linus, Clement’s traditional predecessor in the Roman church. 
It is therefore often called 'the Pseudo-Linus. We subjoin merely 
a summary of its contents. 

In the late fifth or early sixth century, a legend of somewhat 
different type was composed around the names of two historical 
persons, Nereus and Achilleus, which contributed incidentally 
new features to the story of Peter. Nereus and Achilleus in life 
were body servants of the noble lady Flavia Domitilla, who was 
banished from Rome about the year 95, by her kinsman, the 
emperor Domitian, on the ground of her religion. Her two re- 
tainers were executed and buried in the catacomb which Domitilla 
had constructed for the use of Christians on land belonging to her 
outside the city. A relief commemorating the death of Nereus 
may be seen there today. In an arcosolium of the same catacomb, 
are also the tomb and portrait of another martyr, a woman, 


Petronilla, of whom nothing whatever is known. Her name is the 


regular feminine form of the masculine Petronius and she may 
perhaps have been a relative of Domitilla.°’ By the time, how- 
ever, that the legend of which we speak was written down, Latin 
scholarship had long been on the wane and some visitor to the 
disused catacomb imagined that he had discovered in her tomb 
the resting-place of a forgotten daughter of the apostle Peter.**® 
The bare hint was enough. A shrine was dedicated to St. 
Petronilla by the side of that erected to Nereus and Achilleus, 
and the legend was enlarged to embrace all three. An element 
of pathos was brought into the apostle’s masterful career. Pet- 


155 The wording of the inscription is simply, “ Aurelia Petronilla filia dulcis- 
sima.”’ 156 The feminine form of Peter or Petrus is Petrilla. 


es oe a, 


lig it 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 199 


ronilla became his virgin, paralytic daughter, borne about on a 
litter beside him, whom he could not heal. Nereus and Achilleus 
were converts to his later preaching at Rome and after his death, 
the comrades and guardians of Petronilla until their martyrdom. 
A lively version of the battle with Simon Magus came in as part 
of a letter from Marcellus, Peter’s earlier friend,’*’ to the more 
recent converts, describing the apostle’s former miracles to which 
he had been witness. Petronilla herself enjoyed, in time, con- 
siderable personal popularity. In the eighth century, King Pepin 
expressly requested Pope Stephen II to move her remains for 
better protection from the catacomb to the shelter of her father’s 
great basilica. They were carried to the imperial mausoleum at 
the south end of the transept of St. Peter’s which was thereupon 
christened the chapel of Santa Petronilla, a title which it kept 
until its destruction in the sixteenth century. The huge painting 
of Guercino, in which Petronilla is the central figure, is now a 
conspicuous ornament of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the 
Capitoline Hill. 

Our last specimen of apocryphal composition, the Passion of 
Peter and Paul, coming on top of so many others, when a reader 
has become a trifle sated with thaumaturgy, proves what fresh 
and startling ideas might yet be evolved by an ingenious mind 
working with the rich materials of the legend and the monuments 
of the city and unhampered by any historical scruples. This 
Passion was written probably near the end of the sixth century or 
the opening of the seventh, when classical Rome had already sunk 
so far out of memory that a man wandering among her neglected 
statues and temples could interpret them as his fancy chose. 
Only on such an hypothesis can one account for the amazing 
explanation of the statue of Janus, that still stood in its famous 
shrine near the Curia or Senatehouse on the edge of the Forum. 
The notion here propounded did not for some reason commend 
itself to popular favor and the Passion as a whole never attained 
the reputation of its forerunners. We confine ourselves to a 
summary of its most striking novelties. It is palpably the most 
medieval of the documents we have handled. 


157 Supra, p. 137. 


200 THE SEE OF PETER 


As, in course of time, every important event of Christian 
history was substantiated by concrete and tangible evidence in 
the shape of relics, such as drops of Mary’s milk and wine 
of Cana, crowns of thorns and winding cloths from the holy 
sepulchre, so also the legend of Peter was confirmed by solid 
memorials, a few of which are exhibited to pilgrims to this day. 
We have met already an allusion to the four stones united into 
one by the impact of Simon’s fall.*°* The four stones have dis- 
appeared but the gigantic print left upon the pavement by the 
foot of Christ, when he parted from Peter at the city gate, is still 
displayed in a chapel of the church of San Sebastiano. The 
chains which Peter wore in prison have been, since the fifth cen- 
tury, in the keeping of the church of San Pietro ad Vincula, 
founded by the Empress Eudoxia to receive them. We append 
to the last of our apocrypha some random notices of other relics 
which were pointed out in the Rome of the Middle Ages. The 
first, the slab on which wide grooves were worn by the knees of 
Peter and Paul, as they knelt in prayer, is now preserved in the 
church called San Francesca Romana, which stands on the site 
of the ancient temple of Venus and Rome, to one side of the 
Via Sacra. The earliest basilica erected on this spot was dedi- 
cated to Peter. Simon Magus, it will be remembered, crashed 
to his destruction on the Via Sacra.*°? ‘The slab whereon he fell 
is mentioned by Gregory, bishop of Tours, who visited Rome 
about 590, and again by Anastasius, the papal librarian, who 
recorded the building of the church of St. Peter by Paul I, about 
765. Another relic, a stone stained by Simon’s gore, perhaps a 
block of porphyry, has also vanished, but in the twelfth century 
it was listed among the memorable objects passed by a pope in 
his progress from the Vatican to the Lateran and in the fourteenth 
century, Petrarch spoke of it to a friend as one of the notable 
sights of Rome.*® 


158 Supra, p. 176, n. 117. 

159 Supra, pp. 149, 176. 

160 A psalter, painted in Byzantium in the late ninth century and containing 
a picture of the defeat of Simon by Peter as symbolic of the overthrow of the 
iconoclasts by the orthodox forces at the Seventh Council of Nicaea in 843, is now 
in the Vatican Library and known as the Barberini Psalter. J. B, Bury, A History 
of the Eastern Roman Empire (London, 1912), pp. 431-432. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 201 


Our subject has dropped to the level of folk lore and super- 
stition and for that reason may be held no longer worthy the 
attention of the serious investigator. The connection between 
the rise of the majestic institution of the Papacy and the appear- 
ance in the Forum of the trumpery relics of Simon’s downfall 
may indeed be impossible to establish. Yet if any powerful and 
far-reaching authority, in order to prove enduring, has had always 
to construct for itself a foothold of faith and reverence in the 
people over whom its power was exerted, these childish legends 
and relics had their uses. They told the multitude in simple 
language wonderful things of Peter, the reported founder of the 
Roman See, and, more than the writings of a hundred scholars, 
instilled into their minds an awe and admiration for what he had 
accomplished and suffered.*** 


F. X. Funk, Die apostolischen Konstitutionem (Rothenburg, 1891); ibid. 
in Die Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen (2 vols., 
Paderborn, 1887-1889), Vol. II, pp. 359-372; F. Nau, Constitutions Apos- 
toliques, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (7 vols., Paris, 1909-1924, 
pp. 1520 sqq.); A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis 
Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1897-1904), Vol. II (Die Chronologie der alt- 
christlichen Litteratur); C. Guignebert, La Primauté de Pierre (Paris, 1909) ; 
passim; R. A. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome (Boston, 1893), pp. 
335-342. 


THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE APOSTLES 
: (Fourth or Fifth Century) 


Constitutiones Apostolorum, VI, 9; VII, 46. Text. 
Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, ed. by F. X. 
Funk. 


VI o “. . . And Simon, meeting me, Peter, first at Caes- 
area Stratonis, where the faithful Cornelius, a gentile, be- 
lieved on the Lord Jesus through me,” tried to pervert the 
word of God. There were with me there the holy youths, 


161 On the effect of increasing public acquaintance with the personality of a 
ruler or an official, in order to stimulate affection and loyalty to him, see Graham 
Wallas, Human Nature in Politics (Boston, 1919), 30-34. 

162 Acts, X. 


202 THE SEE OF PETER 


Zacchaeus, who was once a publican,” and Barnabas, Nice- 
tas and Aquila, brothers of Clement,'™ the bishop and citizen 
of Rome, the disciple of Paul, our fellow apostle and co- 
worker in the gospel. I thrice in their presence reasoned 
with Simon concerning the true Prophet and concerning the 
kingdom of God and when I had vanquished him by the 
power of the Lord and put him to silence, I drove him away 
into Italy. 

Then when he was in Rome, he distressed the church 
mightily and seduced many and won them over to himself 
and astounded the gentiles with his skill in magic, insomuch 
that once, in the middle of the day, he went into their theatre 
and bade the people to bring me also by force into the 
theatre and promised that he would fly in the air. And 
when all the people stood in suspense at this, I prayed by 
myself. And he was truly carried up into the air by demons 
and flew aloft in the air, saying that he was returning to 
heaven and that thence he would bestow benefits upon them. 
And while the people acclaimed him as a god, I stretched 
out my hands to heaven and with my soul besought God 
through the Lord Jesus to overthrow this pest, destroy the 
power of those demons that made use of him for the seduc- 
tion and ruin of men, dash him to the ground and bruise him 
but not kill him. Then, fixing my eyes on Simon, I said to 
him: ‘ If I be a man of God and true apostle of Jesus Christ 
and teacher of piety and not of falsehood, as you are, Simon, 
I command the wicked powers of the rebel against good, 
by whom Simon, the wizard, is upborne, to loose their hold, 
that he may fall headlong from his height and be exposed 
to the mockery of those who have been deluded by him.’ 
When I had said this, Simon was bereft of his might and 
fell headlong with a great noise and was dashed violently 
upon the ground and his hip and ankle bones were broken. 


163 Supra, p. 167. 
164 These brothers figure in the Clementine Recognitions. Supra, p. 160. 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 203 


And the people shouted, saying: ‘There is but one God, 
whom Peter preaches rightly and in truth!’ Then many 
forsook him, but some, who deserved perdition, continued 
in his evil doctrines. . . .” 
VII 46 “. . . As regarding these bishops who have been 
ordained in our lifetime, we now write unto you that they 
are these: James, bishop of Jerusalem, . . .; at Antioch, 
Euodius,*” ordained by me, Peter, and Ignatius *** by Paul; 
. In the church at Rome, Linus, son of Claudia, was the 
first, ordained by Paul, and Clement, after Linus’ death, 
the second, ordained by me, Peter,*®’. . .” 


THE MARTYRDOM OF THE BLESSED APOSTLE PETER AS 
RECORDED BY LINUS, THE BISHOP 


(Fourth or Fifth Century) 


Martyrium beati Petri apostoli a Lino episcopo conscriptum. 
Text. Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. by R. A. 
Lipsius and M. Bonnet, I, 1-22. 


[The four concubines of the prefect Agrippa, and 
Xandipe, the wife of Albinus, friend of Caesar, are all con- 
verted to a life of chastity by Peter’s preaching. Xandipe 
warns Peter and his disciple Marcellus, son of the prefect 
Marcus, of the danger threatening Peter. He is denounced 
in the Senate for separating wives from husbands and some 
of the senators, ‘‘ enlightened ** by the Lord through Peter,” 
also send him warning. 

His converts implore him to flee the city. Processus and 
Martinianus, “‘ keepers of the prison,” advise him to leave 
while he can. ‘“ For since you called the fountain from the 


165 Supra, p. 116. 
166 Ignatius was bishop of Antioch fifty years after Paul’s death. Supra, 


41 
hi 17” Another attempt to account for Clement’s ordination by Peter. Supra, 


pp. 85, 86, 
168 te Latin word is “ illuminati.” 


204 THE SEE OF PETER 


rock by your prayers and by the wondrous sign of the cross 
and baptized us, who believed, in the Mamertime prison 
hard by, you have gone freely whither you pleased and no 
one has opposed you.” * Peter sets out and meets the 
vision of the Lord at the gate. He returns rejoicing, saying 
that the Lord will be crucified in him again. 

Hieros with four “ apparitores ” and ten other guards 
arrests him and brings him before the prefect Agrippa for 
trial. After sentence, he is crucified “ at the place which is 
called the Naumachia, near the obelisk of Nero,” on the 
hill.” Before his death, he makes a long address and prayer 
from the cross. Marcellus takes down the body and lays it 
in his own tomb. Nero hears of it and is angry, because he 
had intended himself to punish Peter for depriving him of 
Simon Magus. | 


AcTs oF NEREUS AND ACHILLEUS 
(Fifth or Sixth Century) 
Acta Nerei et Achillet, IV, 14. Text. Ed. by H. Achelis in 


Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der alichrist- 
lichen Literatur, XI, no. 2. 


[ Marcellus, the disciple of Peter, sends a letter to Nereus 


and Achilleus, containing an account of the contest with 


Simon Magus. He describes how Peter raised a dead man 
to life and tamed the fierce dog that Simon set to attack him 
and how the dog tore Simon’s clothes, so that the boys jeered 
at him and drove him out of the city. | 


169 This passage proves the previous existence of a form of the legend which 
we have not met, according to which Peter had passed some time in confinement 
In the Mamertine prison and was still, nominally at least, in custody. Since the 

efifteenth century, there has been a shrine over the Mamertine vault known as 
_San Pietro in Carcere and the trickling spring which Peter summoned from the 
rock: has .been, pointed out to visitors. 

170 The obelisk which now stands in the center of the Piazza di San Pietro was 
brought from Heliopolis in Egypt to Rome by Caligula and set up in the center of 
his circus or Naumachia. It was moved on rollers to its present position by Pope 
_Sixtus V, in 1586. It is the only obelisk in Rome that has never been thrown down. 


a 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 205 


IV 14 After this he could not endure the shameful disgrace 
and for a year never showed himself. But then he found 
someone who brought him to the favorable notice of Nero 
Caesar; and thus it came to pass that a malignant man 
acquired a malignant friend, nay, one more wicked than him- 
self. And afterwards the Lord appeared to the apostle Peter 
in a vision and said: ‘“ Simon and Nero, being filled with 
demons, are plotting against you. Fear not, for I am with 
you and I will give you the solace of my servant, the apostle 
Paul, who tomorrow will arrive in Rome. With him you 
shall make war together upon Simon for seven months and 
when you have cast him out and overcome him and driven 
him down to hell, you shall both come together victorious 
tome.” And this came to pass, for Paul arrived on the next 
day. And how in turn they saw one another and contended 
with Simon for seven months, I have thought needless to tell 
you, as you know it, for you were here and beheld it with 
your eyes and Saint Linus wrote the whole story of their 
passion in the Greek tongue for the churches of the East.*” 


THE PASSION OF THE APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL 
(Sixth or Seventh Century) 


Passio Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Text. Acta Apostol- 
orum Apocrypha, ed. by R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, 
1;223-234. 

[The usual narrative is varied with several new incidents. 
Simon Magus professes to be Christ, who was rejected and 
crucified by the Jews but has returned to earth at Rome. 
The imposture is detected by relatives of Pontius Pilate, 
who had been in Judaea during Christ’s lifetime and who 
knew that his personal appearance differed from Simon’s. 

Nero has a statue erected to Simon, and later, after 

171 Supra, pp. 198, 203. 


206 THE SEE OF PETER 


Simon has spoken at one and the same time to the emperor 
in the Senate and to the people standing outside, he has 
another statue set up “‘ with two faces, one looking toward 
the Senate and one toward the people.” |*” 


8. RELICS IN EVIDENCE OF THE LEGEND 1% 
GREGORY OF TOURS 
(Late Sixth Century) 
De Gloria Martyrum, I, 28. 


There may be seen today in the city of Rome two grooves 
in the rock, on which the blessed apostles with bended knees 
poured out their prayer to the Lord against Simon Magus. 
The water which collects in these grooves after a rain is 
sought for by sick persons and, when drunk, speedily restores 
the health. 


ANASTASIUS 
(757-767) 
Vita Pauli Papae I. 
He [Paul I] built recently a church within this city of 


174 


Rome, on the Via Sacra, near the temple of Romulus,*™ in | 


honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, where the same 
most blessed princes of the apostles, at the time when they 
were crowned with martyrdom, poured out their prayers to 


172 The celebrated temple of Janus, the doors of which always stood open 
except in time of peace, was situated to one side of the Senate House, between it 
and the Basilica Emilia. The great bronze statue of the two-faced god was seen 
still in its place by the historian Procopius, when he visited the Forum about the 
middle of the sixth century. De Bello Gothico, IV, 22. 

173 For further information on this subject see G. B. de Rossi, Della memoria 
topografica del sito ove cadde Simone il mago sulla Via Sacra in Bullettino dé 
archeologia cristiana (Rome, 1867), Vol. V, pp. 70 sqq.; P. Lugano, Le memorie 
leggendarie di Simon Mago e della sua volata in Nuovo bullettino di archeologia 
cristiana (Rome, 1900), pp. 60 sqq. 

174 The circular shrine or Herodn erected by the emperor Maxentius in 
memory of his son Romulus. It now forms the vestibule of the church of Santi 
Cosma e Damiano, at the end toward the Via Sacra. 


-_ 


7 _—=-'* 


THE PETRINE TRADITION 207 


our Redeemer and were seen kneeling with bended knees. 
In this spot even to this day their knees may be seen 
impressed upon the solid rock for a witness to all future 
generations. 


BENEDICT, CANON OF ST. PETER 
(1130-1143) 
Ordo Romanus, V. 


He [the pope] passes by the rock where Simon Magus 
fell, near the temple of Romulus. 


PETRARCH 
| (1304-1374) 
Epistola ad Philippum de Vitriaco. 


You will see the stone stained with the wicked brains 
of Simon. 


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THE RISE OF THE SEE 
INTRODUCTION 


Having traced through our documentary chronicle the growth 
of the tradition of Peter’s presence at Rome and of his foun- 
dation of the Roman episcopate, we may now attempt a similar 
review of the history of the see itself during the three hundred 
years after Peter’s death. We begin, as before, with the period 
of shadowy origins in an obscure cult that had recently struck 
root in the byways of the capital and follow down to the time of 
that see’s recognition as the chief authority in a triumphant 
and expanding state religion, whose power was felt throughout 
the Mediterranean world. 

In this second part of our book, we print, entire or abridged, 
_ most of the documents and passages that throw light of any kind 
upon the popes of the first three hundred and eighty years of our 
era. Up to the reign of Constantine, these documents are so 
sparse and fragmentary and, when all is said, leave such wide 
intervals wholly untouched and blank that it has seemed desir- 
able to give everything that could be found, even such scraps 
of personal biography and anecdote as do not strictly belong in 
the history of an institution. Our imaginations need every dis- 
coverable aid if they are to frame any conception whatever of 
the men and events that were slowly preparing the Papacy of 
Julius I and Damasus. During this primitive period, we hear but 
two bishops speaking unmistakably and at any length in their 
own words, Clement, about 96, and Cornelius, between 250 and 
254. The letter here attributed doubtfully to Soter and the 
sermon ascribed on slender grounds to Victor may be genuine 
but both are couched in such general terms that they are of little 
help toward the understanding of a specific age. We read, of 
course, of momentous letters and declarations issued by Eleu- 
therus, Victor, Callistus, Stephen and Felix but no remnants of 
their papers are now to be discovered in any archives. Eusebius 


2Ir 


ziD THE SEE OF PETER 


preserves a few excerpts from the manuscripts he handled at 
Caesarea, where copies of the correspondence of many famous 
bishops, Roman, Alexandrian, Greek and Asiatic, were kept in 
the library of the church, but the documents he cites are insig- 
nificant in number when compared with those he merely lists. 
Indeed to read Eusebius on papal history is a painful pleasure in 
spite of his priceless excerpts. One is so constantly tantalized 
by his allusions to what else he might have quoted. If it were 
not for the writings of the early theologians, Irenaeus, Tertul- 
lian, Hippolytus and Cyprian, who in one capacity or another had 
relations with contemporary Roman bishops, it would not be pos- 
sible to form any connected outline of this period at all. 

From the time of Constantine onward, the records are con- 
siderably fuller and more diversified in character. There is 
more visible effort to save material that may be of value for the fu- 
ture. Eusebius recounts at length the benevolent activities of the 
first Christian emperor and inserts the text of many imperial let- 
ters and decrees. He is followed by other ecclesiastical historians, 
Athanasius, Hilary, Jerome, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, 
as well as by some whose names have disappeared, who not only 
narrate events but also begin systematic collections of documents, 
edicts, petitions, letters and acts of councils. Here we find more 
than one illuminating letter from the Roman bishops Julius, 
Liberius and Damasus. The correspondence of such distin- 
guished persons as Athanasius, Basil and Ambrose, the pagan 
history of Ammianus Marcellinus, the statutes of the Theodosian - 
Code, all these and other things contain references to the position 
or policies of the Roman See. For our last fifty years, therefore, 
it becomes necessary to make some selection, if our chronicle is 
not to outrun its limits. We still, however, try to include every- 
thing that possesses genuine importance or suggestive association, 
omitting only what is repetitious or less significant for the purpose 
we have in mind. 

At this juncture, we should perhaps remind ourselves that 
we are not following the rise of the general institution of the 
episcopacy nor the evolution of the functions of the bishop as 
such. We have, as we have said, assembled first and last 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 213 


much miscellaneous information on the Roman bishops, but 
Our main intention throughout is to watch the progress of the 
office from a simple bishopric to a primacy. We make no effort 
to account for the appearance within the church of Rome, as 
elsewhere, of the single, autocratic bishop, presiding over the 
collegiate body of presbyters, bishops and deacons which the 
apostles knew. Discussions of the episcopal form of government 
are to be found in any history of the Church or of church law." 
Here we try to observe chiefly in the Roman See not the features 
which it shared in common with other sees all over the Empire 
but its unique aspects, whatever was exceptional in its domestic 
or foreign affairs, its relations with other bishoprics and branches 
of the Church outside its diocesan jurisdiction and ultimately its 
assumption of superiority over all other churches, East and 
West. Our object of study is not the bishop of Rome fer se 
but the bishop of Rome on his way to becoming the supreme 
pontiff of the universal Church. 

Certain broad questions which naturally arise at the com- 
mencement of such a study should find some answer in our series 
of extracts and documents. What, first of all, were the out- 
standing reasons for the rise of the Papacy to hegemony in the 
Church? What were the character and extent of that hegemony 
before the period of the barbarian invasions? Some of these 
answers stand out in our texts, conspicuous on the surface. 
Others must be reached, if at all, by a painstaking process of 
inference. Different readers will have different views as to how 
the emphasis should be distributed. We shall devote the re- 
mainder of this introduction to demonstrating how readily an- 
swers do build themselves up out of our material and what aspects 
they tend to assume as the chronicle progresses. We shall our- 
selves make no exhaustive examination but merely try to suggest 
the constructive ends such a study may be made to serve. 

In the first place, it is evident that the Roman church had 
advantages of location that would have ensured for it a measure 

1 See, for example, A. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity (2nd ed.), Vol. I, 
pp. 334-482; A. Harnack, Entstehung und Entwickelung der Kirchenverfassung und 


des Kirchenrechts in den zwei ersten Jahrhunderten; J. Reville, Origines de 
VEpiscopat (Paris, 1895). 


214 THE SEE OF PETER 


of prominence, even if no apostle had crossed the Mediterranean. 
It was planted in the city of Rome, the capital of the world.” 
Among the Jews and Greeks of the foreign quarter and the slaves 
and freedmen attached to noble households the gospel spread so 
quickly that when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans he could 
refer to several congregations, “ ecclesiolae,” already in existence 
among them.* The passage in Clement’s letter on the persecu- 
tions of Nero implies that the body of Christians was really con- 
siderable.* A few years later, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to beg 
the Roman church not to interfere to prevent the execution of 
his sentence of martyrdom.’ If the letter usually known as 
II Clement. be actually the composition of Bishop Soter or of 
some other Roman between the years 120 and 170, as Harnack 
supposes, the statement contained in it, that the Christians of 
that day outnumbered the Jews,° must have been meant for 
Rome and Southern Italy. Not long afterward, Irenaeus could 
remark that the faithful from everywhere habitually met at 
Rome.” As a matter of fact, not only the orthodox faithful but 
also the innovators and champions of every kind of doctrine 
made their appearance sooner or later at the great capital. 
Simon, the reputed author of the first heresy,° Valentinus,°® 


2 Athanasius speaks of the respect due to the Roman church not alone because 
of its apostolic foundation but also because of its situation in the “ metropolis ” 
of the Empire. Infra, p. 569. 

3 Romans, XVI, 1-16. Aristobulus and Narcissus are known to have been 
nobles high in official life. A little later, Paul mentions the saints “that are of 
Caesar’s household.” Philippians, IV, 22. On the subterranean chapel, discovered 
in 1776 near the church of Santa Prisca, which may have marked the site of the 
house of Prisca and Aquila but which has since been buried again, see R. A. 
Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 110-111. 

4 Supra, p. 68. Tacitus, describing the persecution, speaks of the Christians 
as “a vast number.” Annales, XV, 44. His phrase, however, is somewhat to be 
discounted as a rhetorical exaggeration. But by the end of the first century, the 
construction of Christian catacombs, similar to the Jewish but ere long surpassing 
them in size, had begun outside the city walls. J. Wilpert, Die Malerezen der 
Katakomben Roms (2 vols., Freiburg, 1903). One or two members of the inner 
group at court, Titus Flavius Clemens and Domitilla, had joined the new sect. 

5 Infra, p. 241. 

6 It was natural to compare the Christian community with the Jewish, both 
because of the connection between the two faiths and also because their members 
were drawn mostly from the same foreign populations at Rome. Of the first six- 
teen traditional popes only four, Linus, Clement, Pius and Victor, had Latin names; 
Victor, the thirteenth, was the first apparently to conduct his correspondence in 
Latin. The first recorded church building was put up in the Jewish district 
beyond the Tiber. Infra, p. 300. 7 Infra, p. 267. 8 Supra, pp. 128, 131. 

9 On the following names, vide infra, pp. 258, 272, 278, 279. Plutarch, in his 
panegyric on the Roman Fortuna, says that the city has become the sacred shrine of 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 215 


Cerdon, Marcion, Tatian, Theodotus, Artemon, and other well- 
known teachers of heterodoxy, all were heard there. Marcion 
brought with him a gift of two hundred thousand sesterces to 
the Roman church. By the opening of the third century, four or 
five different Christian sects or schools had quarters at Rome, 
each professing its particular type of discipline or dogma, a sit- 
uation which lasted on even after the government had begun to 
maintain orthodoxy in the fourth century. 

The letter of Bishop Cornelius, written between 251 and 254, 
gives us authoritative data as to the size and resources of the 
orthodox church in his time.*® His figures seem to indicate a 
membership of at least thirty thousand, a widespread system of 
domestic poor relief and an elaborately graded hierarchy of 
clergy. A century later, Optatus of Mileve wrote that there 
were more than forty basilicas in the city... During a vacancy 
in the Roman See, caused by the severity of persecution, the 
emperor Decius is said to have remarked that he would rather 
hear of the appearance of a rival claimant to the throne than 
of a new bishop at Rome.” The emperor Aurelian appointed a 
Roman bishop to act as arbitrator in a heated controversy that 
had arisen in the freshly conquered province of Syria over the 
see of Antioch.** The period just preceding the reign of Diocle- 
tian saw a rapid increase in the church’s numbers and worldly in- 
fluence. When Eusebius wrote his History, he thought it at least 
plausible to say that Maxentius proclaimed himself a Christian 
in Rome “ in order to please the Roman people.” ** 

The Christian emperors of the fourth century preferred Milan 
to Rome as a western seat of government but they still re- 
garded Rome and its institutions with dutiful feelings of respect 
and honor. Constantine himself exhibited no marked deference 
toward the Roman bishopric, although he sanctioned the gift of 


every man’s faith. De Romanorum Fortuna, 316; quoted by H. M. Gwatkin, Early 
Church History, Vol. II, p. 215, n. 1. 

10 Infra, pp. 352-353, 384-385. 

11 Supra, p. 110. De Schismate Donatistarum, II, 4. 

12 Infra, p. 372. 

13 Infra, pp. 439-441. 

14 Historia Ecclesiastica, VIII, 14, 1. Rome was, of course, more pagan than 
Eusebius imagined. 


216 THE SEE OF PETER 


a palace to Miltiades as an episcopal residence and enriched the 
Roman church in his customary, lavish manner with handsome 
basilicas over the tombs of its patron apostles.**° His son Con- 
stans, however, gave Julius I a substantial and steady backing 
that no bishop had ever before received, going even as far as to 
threaten his brother Constantius with war if he failed to rein- 
state Julius’ candidate in the see of Alexandria.*® In fact, the 
eastern Arians once taunted Julius with the material basis of his 
authority, which came, they implied, from the greatness of his 
city, not from any spiritual superiority.’ The Arian Constantius 
took special pains to win over Bishop Liberius, although in the 
end he sent him into exile as he had the obstinate bishops of 
Milan and Vercellae and ordered an Arian consecrated in the 
Lateran.** But under the orthodox rulers who succeeded Con- 
stantius in the West the Roman pontiff was again assured of fa- 
vor and support. Damasus was many times protected from his 
enemies by the magistrates and an imperial edict confirmed him 
in his jurisdiction over all other bishops.*® 

Items like these enumerated seem to show that the Roman 


church was bound by the bare fact of its strategic position in the - 


mother city of the Empire to fill a notable place in the Christian 
organization. Because of a similar position in the “ royal city ” 
of ‘New Rome” the bishopric of Constantinople was in time 
recognised as the foremost see of the East, devoid though it was 
of any pretension whatever to age or to an apostolic tradition. 
Furthermore, the Roman Christians, who were, as we have said, 
from the beginning men of varied races, habitats and sympa- 
thies, were in these first centuries peculiarly generous in the use 
of their wealth and influence. Clement, in his letter to the 
Corinthians, lays great stress on the duty of hospitality to 
strangers and cites examples of members of his church who were 
selling their property and themselves into slavery to ransom 
prisoners in the mines.”° Ignatius of Antioch calls the Romans 

15 Supra, p. 104; Infra, p. 449. 

16 Infra, p. 530. 18 Infra, pp. 568-577. 

17 Infra, p. 506. 19 Infra, pp. 671-672. 

20 Infra, pp. 236-239. ‘“ We know that many of our number have surrendered 


themselves to captivity so as to ransom others; many have sold themselves into 
slavery and used the price of their own bodies to feed others.” I Clement, LV, 2. 


eC. Se ee S 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 217 


“foremost in love.” Dionysius of Corinth, writing about 
the year 170, refers admiringly to the Roman practice of send- 
ing assistance to weaker churches in every city.» The Roman 
Victor procured the release of prisoners in Sardinia and Diony- 
sius forwarded money to Cappadocia to redeem Christian 
slaves." Stephen sent aid to Arabians in distress.2* Basil of 
Cappadocia pleads for the charity of Rome to be continued to 
the East as it had been in generations past.2> Unquestionably 
the Roman church very early developed something like a sense 
of obligation to the oppressed all over Christendom. The very 
eastern bishops who, in the third century, firmly repudiated the 
claims of a Roman bishop to ecclesiastical domination admitted 
willingly enough the reputation of tthe same bishop for benevo- 
lence to distant and needy brethren.”* 

The political status of Rome in the peninsula of Italy also 
gave the bishopric in that city a noteworthy advantage over those 
eastern sees that vied with it for precedence. Everywhere, as 
Christianity spread through the Empire, we know that the frame- 
work of ecclesiastical administration tended to pattern itself 
upon the civil. Each local capital or seat of a provincial gov- 
ernor eventually possessed a metropolitan or archbishop with 
rights of general presidency over the bishops of the cities within 
his province. The countries lying about the eastern end of the 
Mediterranean were divided into many provinces. There were 
many capitals, each nominally of the same rank as every other 
and none so indisputably superior as to be able to impose its 
supremacy upon the rest, before the rise of Constantinople in the 
fourth century. In Italy, circumstances were different. Italy 
itself, for purposes of government, was treated as a unit until the 
reign of Diocletian. All its primitive tribal divisions had been 
abolished under the Republic. The peninsula was regarded as the 

21° Infra, p. 241. 

22 Infra, p. 252. 

23 Infra, pp. 308, 642. 

24 Infra, p. 420. 

25 Infra, pp. 641-642. In his account of the eastern persecutions under Dio- 
cletian, Eusebius says that the Roman custom of dispensing succor had lasted to his 
own day. Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 5, 2. A Roman deacon accompanied the 


Alexandrian bishop to his trial during Valerian’s persecution. Infra, p. 422. 
26 Infra, p. 420. 


218 THE SEE OF PETER 


setting or background of the city Rome and was ruled from Rome. 
Consequently there was but one focus of authority. By the year 
252, there seem to have been one hundred bishops in central and 
southern Italy *’ but outside Rome there was nothing to set one 
bishop above another. All were on a level together, citizens of 
Italy, accustomed to look to Rome for direction in every detail 
of public life. The Roman bishop had the right not only to or- 
dain but even, on occasion, to select bishops for Italian churches. 
Not until the late fourth century, did the exceptional position of 
the bishop of Milan at the courts of Valentinian and Gratian and 
the personal gifts of Ambrose himself result in the establishment 
at Milan ** of a second center of ecclesiastical influence in Italy 
and by that time the primacy of Rome ¥ was too firmly grounded 
to be shaken. 

Beyond Italy there was no city in the West to approach 
Rome in dignity or grandeur. Carthage, the greatest commer- 
cial port on the African coast west of Egypt, seems to have 
received her Christianity first through Roman missionaries *° 
and although the Carthaginian bishop acted later as metropolitan 
of the provinces of Africa, Numidia and Mauretania, he ex- 
pressed habitually for the Roman bishop the deference due to 
an older brother.*° With painful reluctance and distress of mind 
did Cyprian bring himself to oppose Stephen on what he deemed 
a fundamental principle of church constitution.** Caecilian had 
the emperor’s command to carry his quarrel with the Donatists 


to Rome for judgment.*? In Spain and Gaul, there was appar- 


ently no thorough organization of the church by provinces until 
after the time of Constantine. A Spanish or Gallic dispute was 
regularly referred to Rome for settlement.** A Spanish metro- 


27 Infra, pp. 353, 382. Christianity made its way more slowly in northern 
Italy. There the bishoprics known to have existed in the year 300 are only 
Ravenna, Milan, Aquileia, Brescia, Verona, Bologna, and Imola. A. Harnack, 
The Mission and Expansion of Christianity (2nd ed.), Vol. II, pp. 258-260. 

28 The church of Milan, like the churches of Ravenna and Aquileia; may 
have been founded by missionaries from Illyricum or Dalmatia during the third 
century. In time, it invented a legend of foundation by the apostle Barnabas, 

29 Infra, p. 204. 

80 Infra, pp. 363, 377-379. 

31 Infra, pp. 395-398, 404 ff. 

82 Infra, p. 457. 


83 Infra, pp. 399, 402. Hosius, bishop of Cordova, was a favorite of the | 


emperor Constantine and much employed by him in the transaction of church 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 219 


politan of the fourth century wrote to Damasus for instruction 
how to deal with an ungovernable band of ascetics and a Span- 
ish synod took his reply as its rule for guidance.** Throughout 
the West it seemed quite natural to turn to the source of politi- 
cal authority for religious leadership also. 

The reasons thus far adduced for the rise of the Roman 
church to eminence may be called the material or adventitious 
reasons, due to its special advantages of location and resources. 
As long as the city Rome continued to be the resplendent mis- 
tress of the world, these reasons alone would give the church 
within her walls what might be described as an aristocratic place 
among other churches. Whether they would have sufficed to 
keep it in that place when imperial Rome declined and fell is 
another matter. At any rate, other factors of an ecclesiastical 
and religious nature also entered soon into the situation, one set 
of factors continually reénforcing the other. With all the reli- 
gious support in the world the Papacy, as we find it, could hardly 
have arisen in a petty, country town. On the other hand, ma- 
terial advantages alone could not have given it the hold it grad- 
ually came to possess over men’s minds and spirits. A con- 
sciousness of owning both material and moral forces, an ability 
to wield the weapons of power and to justify them by spiritual 
sanctions are traits perceptible even in the earliest Roman 
bishops. They soon became fixed characteristics of the office, 
endowing the incumbents one after another with extraordinary 
positiveness and assurance. 

As, by the end of the first century, the expectation of Christ’s 
speedy return began to wane and it became increasingly clear 
that the Church must adapt itself to an indefinite career of 
struggle on earth, the looseness of organization and the sim- 
plicity of belief, which had been tolerable when all Christians 
lived in daily anticipation of the end, grew more and more im- 
possible. The apostles and eye-witnesses of the truth had dis- 
appeared. It became necessary then to formulate traditions and 


business, but his prominence was purely personal and accidental. After his death 
the see of Cordova slips back into obscurity. 
34 Infra, pp. 609, 692-693. 


220 THE SEE OF PETER 


decide upon rules to keep the faithful in the straight path. The 
Church of the second and third centuries was, as we have said 
elsewhere, a church in process of crystallizing into a permanent 
institution, equipping itself, bit by bit, with ritual for its serv- 
ices, creeds for its neophytes and a specialized body of officials 
for its administration. Several congregations put forth particu- 
lar claims to be regarded as the spokesmen for the vanished 
apostles, those, of course, which were known to have had close 
relations with the apostolic leaders in their lifetime and which, 
therefore, might be supposed to have kept the fullest memories 
of their teaching. In the East, the most prominent of these con- 
gregations were Smyrna and Ephesus in Asia Minor, Antioch in 
Syria and Alexandria in Egypt. Each had its venerable set of 
traditions and its line of bishops running back to the apostolic 
age.°> The result, however, of the juxtaposition of four such 
churches was that no one of them was able to assert its tradi- 
tion above the others. The church at Jerusalem, which might 
reasonably have demanded a more exalted reverence, was dis- 
persed at the destruction of the city and the congregation which 
gathered later in Roman Aelia counted for less abroad than An- 
tioch or Alexandria.** No one was indisputably first and from 
time to time they broke up into hostile and jealous factions. 
Each in its own region developed its own calendar of feasts, its 
own variety of liturgy and creed, and priests suspended in one 
circle for infraction of rules or heterodoxy of opinion might find 
support and shelter in another.*’ 

In the West, as in other ways, the situation was different. 
There was but one apostolic church and that a singularly illus- 
trious one, consecrated by the labors of the two most famous 
missionary apostles. To Christians of the Occident the Roman 
church was their sole, direct link with the age of the New Testa- 
ment and its bishop was the one prelate in their part of the world 


35 Supra, pp. 80, 102, 116; infra, 269, 270, 281, 485. 

36 Once, in the middle of the third century, we find the Romans blamed for 
departing from the customs of Jerusalem. Infra, p. 413. With the growth of the 
cult of relics and holy places in the fourth century Jerusalem comes again into 
something like importance, but it never plays the part in ecclesiastical politics that 
is taken by Antioch or Alexandria. Infra, p. 486, n. 95. 

87 Infra, pp. 312, 467-468, 


— =<” 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 221 


in whose voice ‘they discerned echoes of the apostles’ speech. 
The Roman bishop spoke always as the guardian of an authorita- 
tive tradition, second to none. Even when the eastern churches 
insisted that their traditions were older and quite as sacred, if 
not more so,** the voice in the West, unaccustomed to rivalry at 
home, spoke on regardless of protest or denunciation at a dis- 
tance. ‘The first authentic utterance of a Roman bishop, the 
letter of Clement, is an admonition from Rome to the Pauline 
church at Corinth.*® The first authentic incident related of a 
Roman bishop has to do with a visit paid by the revered Poly- 
carp of Smyrna to Anicetus. Polycarp informs Anicetus that 
the Roman mode of fixing the date of Easter is not that which 
he himself once learned from the practice of the apostle John.*° 
There could be, one would imagine, no more impressive testi- 
mony but it does not affect the Roman. His church has its own 
tradition and he will not change that which he has received from 
his predecessors. 

A few years later, Hegesippus, travelling from place to place 
to ascertain what is the genuine teaching of the apostles, finds 
at Rome a satisfactory line of episcopal succession reaching 
back to apostolic days, which ensures to his mind an unbroken 
continuity of doctrine.** Irenaeus of Asia Minor, who in his 
youth had heard Polycarp preach, is sent to Rome to obtain the 
endorsement of Eleutherus on the action taken by the Asiatics 
in the Montanist dispute. He is so struck by the positiveness 
and confidence of the Roman attitude and the representative, 
cosmopolitan character of the Roman membership that he writes 
his extraordinary glorification of the Roman church.” “It is 
necessary,” he says, “that every church . . . should resort to 
this church on account of its commanding position; and in it the 
apostolic tradition has been preserved continuously by persons 
from every land.” In Irenaeus’ old age, he expostulates with the 
Roman Victor for his harshness in passing sentence of excom- 


88 Infra, pp. 281, 416, 506. 

89 Infra, p. 236. Hermas says that letters may be sent to all the churches 
through Clement. Infra, p. 245. 

a0 Infra; p..247. 

41 Infra, pp. 249-251. 

42 Infra, p. 267. 


222 THE SEE OF PETER 


munication on the Asiatic churches, because they clung to Poly- 
carp’s tradition in the matter of Easter observance, but, so far 
as our extracts show, he does not challenge Victor’s right to insist 
upon conformity to Roman usage.** In the middle of the third 
century, the Roman clergy as a body still pride themselves upon 
the faith that had won Paul’s commendation and maintain their 
responsibility to keep ‘‘ watch over all who call on the name 
of the Lord.” ** 

To the close of the second century, indeed, the religious 
prestige of Rome seems to have attached to the church as a 
whole and to have been based upon its primitive connection 
with both Paul and Peter and its legacy of a double apostolic 
tradition. Upon this as its distinctive, inalienable possession the 


church had by this time erected a remarkable working apparatus 


for efficient, ecclesiastical life, including a brief and practical 
statement of the essentials of belief, a paraphrase of which 
passes today as the Apostles’ Creed, a canon of sacred books, 
enumerated in the so-called Muratorian Fragment,* and a code 
of discipline for the regulation of Christian behavior. ‘Toward 
the middle of the second century, the Roman Hermas proposed 
a modification of the rigorous moral standard of the earlier gen- 
eration *° and at the end of that century, Bishop Callistus was 
scandalizing the Puritans in the community with his further in- 
novation in rules.*” Step by step, however, congregations every- 
where followed the Roman lead in the direction of greater leni- 
ency in the punishment of sins and more implicit faith in the 
efficacy of sacraments. The first system of graded clergy of 
which we happen to hear is the Roman. Under Cornelius, it 
already embraced a complete hierarchy, from bishop to door- 
keeper.** ‘There was some element of statesmanship in a body 
that found its way so successfully along every road that led to 
corporate solidarity. How far its bishops were responsible for 
these early achievements, how far the inspiration was borrowed 
from the huge organ of civil government functioning in the same 
city, it is now impossible to tell. 
43 Infra, pp. 282-284. 46 Infra, pp. 243-244. 


44 Infra, p. 337. 47 Infra, pp. 301, 310-312. 
45 Supra, p. 49, n. 60. 48 Infra, p. 384. 


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THE RISE OF THE SEE oad 


Until the third century, as we have said, one can hardly 
separate the policy and prestige of the Roman church from those 
of the bishopric. Even when Victor refused fellowship to the 
churches of the East, there is nothing to prove that he acted 
other than as the head and mouthpiece of the Roman community 
in an effort to compel universal acceptance of the well-known 
Roman tradition. But in the first quarter of the third century, 
an outcry is suddenly raised against the Roman bishop individ- 
ually, not on the ground of his moral shortcomings, such as 
prompted a great part of Hippolytus’ attack upon Callistus,*° 
but for his novel and subversive view of the constitution of the 
Church catholic. The name of the bishop is not mentioned nor 
the form in which he first enunciated his momentous idea. There 
is merely the flare of resentment against one who is not content 
with his honor as president of his great see but who is grasping 
after the office of “bishop of the bishops.” °° Tertullian and 
Origen write full and elaborate explanations of the Matthew pas- 
sage, “ Thou art Peter,” etc., to show that the blessing and promise 
bestowed by Christ on Peter are not confined to Peter’s lineal suc- 
cessors in the Roman See but belong of right to every Christian 
who makes Peter’s confession.” 

Somewhat later, a group of distinguished ecclesiastics of the 
South and East, led by Cyprian of Carthage, Firmilian of Cap- 
padocia and Dionysius of Alexandria, join in resolute opposi- 
tion to a set of propositions advanced by the Roman Stephen. 
Stephen’s own statements have disappeared but Firmilian’s let- 
ter to Cyprian and Cyprian’s speech at 'the council of African 
bishops give us a fair notion of the issues at stake.*” In Stephen’s 
eyes, the Church was not as the other bishops conceived it to be, a 
loose federation of autonomous units, each unit governed by its 
bishop, each bishop legally equal to every other bishop, supreme 
over his own flock and answerable only to God or, in cases of fla- 
grant misdeed, to a provincial council of his fellows. The theory 
of Stephen, that kindled his contemporaries to such utter exasper- 
ation, was rather that the Church was a monarchy, a congeries in- 


49 Infra, pp. 306 fff. 51 Infra, pp, 302, 317. 
50 Infra, p. 301. 52 Infra, pp. 410, 411. 


224 THE SEE OF PETER 


deed of bishoprics but all of them subject to the superior authority 
of the one bishop who sat upon the throne of the prince of the 
apostles. The Roman See, as distinct from the Roman church, 
was and ought to be predominant, not for its situation or other 
worldly advantages, not even for its treasure of doctrine, be- 
queathed by its two founders, but, primarily and fundamentally, 
because its bishop was heir in his own person to the unique pre- 
rogative conferred upon Peter. To Peter had been granted a 
primacy among the apostles, so to the Roman bishop was assigned 
a leadership over the bishops. ) 

Roman and Carthaginian perished alike during the season of 
persecution that set in soon after these words were written. 
Whether the question was raised again so acutely during that 
century we do not know. About ten years later, certain dis- 
affected persons reported to Bishop Dionysius at Rome some 
heretical opinions on the nature of Christ which were being 
attributed to Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria. ‘The Roman 
wrote to his eminent namesake “to inform him of what they 
had said about him.” The Alexandrian replied with a refuta- 
tion of the slander and the matter rested there. Dionysius of 
Rome, however, called “a great synod” to define for the 
Church the relation of the Son to the Father.** In the fourth 
century, these acts were recalled as arguments to show that a 
Roman bishop had already approved the dogma of Nicaea and 
had passed judgment on an accusation against the metropolitan 
of Alexandria.** The appointment by the emperor Aurelian of 
the Roman Felix to arbitrate the contest over the see of Antioch 
must have seemed a little bitter to those Asiatics who not long 
before had resisted the imperiousness of Stephen, but this time 
the Roman does not seem to have antagonized his eastern 
brethren.*® 

We have almost no information regarding the bishops from 
Felix to Miltiades and are quite in the dark as to their policies, 
except in local affairs. It is significant, however, that during 
these years both the accepted tradition and the popular legends of 
Peter’s labors at Rome were expanded and embellished to fit the 


°3 Infra, pp. 434,436.  5* Infra, pp. 472, 515,607. © Infra, pp. 440-441. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 225 


new papal theory, and that when the bishops emerged again from 
obscurity they had seemingly lost no ground but continued to 
act upon the assumptions previously expressed. The language 
of the Council of Arles shows that the western episcopates were 
generally convinced of the superiority of Silvester’s office to their 
own. ‘They practically apologize for doing anything without 
him.°® At Nicaea, a predominantly eastern assemblage, the 
example of the Roman bishops was cited for guidance in the 
wording of the creed.”’ 

But the direful war of doctrine that followed the dispersal of 
the Nicene Council gave Rome her real opportunity to display 
her virtue as a leader in religion. As long as the churches every- 
where were living at ease, in general peace and harmony, there 
was little chance for one to be accepted by the rest as first, in 
any real or positive sense of the word. But now the eastern 
communities were torn with dissension over their new definitions 
_ of the Godhead and the eastern emperors were aggravating the 
disorder by their free use of force to intimidate, torment or banish 
all who were not of their own sect. With a few negligible res- 
pites this condition lasted for more than forty years, until the 
inner morale of eastern Christianity, as well as its outer organi- 
zation, was corroded through and through by chicanery, rancor 
and fear. No one of the groups into which the church divided 
could trust or cooperate with the others and all were at the 
mercy of Constantius or Julian or Valens, to be rewarded or pun- 
ished as the emperor saw fit. From such turmoil and trial the 
western church was exempt, save for the short term of Constan- 
tius’ reign in the West. As a whole, it remained satisfied with 
the definition of Nicaea,°* which it soon came to regard as a repe- 
tition in fuller phraseology of Peter’s original confession, and 
which it was, therefore, peculiarly incumbent upon Rome to 
guard against every assault. The contending factions in the 
East all desired the support and approbation of the unperturbed 
bishop of Rome. The Arians, who had ousted Athanasius from 
Alexandria, offered to submit the case to Julius for his judg- 
ment.°*? Athanasius himself and other orthodox refugees from 


56 Infra, p. 480. Compare the language of the Council of Aquileia, infra, p. 
607. 57 Infra, p. 472. 58 Infra, p. 517. 58a Infra, pp. 503, 504, 509. 


226 THE SEE OF PETER 


eastern sees went directly to Rome as to a court of appeal. 
Only as the Arians lost hope of Julius’ favor, did they revive 
the old complaint of western arrogance and presumption.*® At 
the general Council of Sardica, their deputation seceded to issue 
a heated proclamation of eastern independence, but the ortho- 
dox Easterners and Westerners stayed behind to issue another, 
in which they claimed for the Roman bishop an appellate juris- 
diction over all the Church in honor of “ the memory of Peter, the 
apostle.” °° 

For one brief period, while the Arian Constantius ruled both 
East and West, did the western church have its constancy tested 
by persecution. Many yielded and apostatized and even the 
Roman Liberius succumbed to the weariness of exile and pur- 
chased his release by recantation. But after Constantius’ death, 
Liberius contrived to return unostentatiously to his old profes- 
sion, ignoring his own lapse and hoping by scrupulous insistence 
on proofs of orthodoxy from others to prevail upon the Church 
to ignore it too. There had been no parade about his fall and 
there was none about his recovery. The nobler spirits of the 
West had meanwhile been rallying their brothers to repentance 
and loyalty to the faith of Peter. The East, engrossed by its — 
own persistent misfortunes, for the most part failed to realize 
that any blot whatever had stained the Roman record. 

Neither this little advertised misstep of Liberius nor the local 
ferment that followed it in some few western churches lowered 
the growing prestige of Rome in the eyes of Oriental catholics. 
The Romans, they were ready to admit, had received from God 
through Peter the priceless gift which the eastern prelates as 
a body seemed to lack, namely, the power to hold fast to the 
truth and to transmit it undefiled to posterity.» As a conse- 
quence, the western church was blessed by God above the eastern, 
being free, by comparison, both from tyrants and from heretics. 

In the East, the conflict went on shifting from one phase 
to another. The very sects were in a continual state of flux, 
unable to maintain any clean-cut or permanent lines of divi- 
sion. Antioch reached the pass of possessing five different claim- 


69 Infra, pp. 505-506. 6° Infra, pp. 518, 520, 522. 
61 Injra, pp. 592, N. 235; 645, 652, 680. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 227 


ants for the episcopal chair, each representing some different 
shade of belief. In desperation, men like Basil and Gregory 
Nazianzen, whose hearts were sore over the wretched state of 
Christ’s flock, appealed to Damasus and the western brother- 
hood to revive the ancient bonds of communion and send envoys 
to show them how to reéstablish orthodoxy and peace.** One 
group after another professed its assent to the Roman creed. 
If Damasus had been more far-sighted or more generous-hearted, 
he might have made himself a true shepherd for all the sheep. 
But he wasted his opportunity in tedious and irritating negotia- 
tions. When the death of Valens in 378 delivered the East from 
Arian coercion, it proceeded to hold its own councils and make 
its own adjustments and decisions. The representatives of Rome 
arrived too late and their attempts then to dictate only stirred 
the long-suffering eastern bishops to exasperation. They passed, 
to be sure, a canon raising the see of Constantinople to the first 
rank in the East, second only to Rome, an acknowledgment in- 
directly of the primacy of Rome.* But they implied also by 
their wording of the canon, whether intentionally or not, that 
that primacy was due to Rome’s position as an imperial capital. 
For that reason Damasus and his successors refused to confirm 
it. Yet there can be no doubt that large numbers of eastern 
Christians had by this time become convinced of the genuine 
superiority of the Roman See in faith and religious insight. The 
eastern emperor Theodosius published an edict requiring his 
subjects to accept the doctrine which Peter had committed to 
the Romans.** More than one eastern writer expressed the west- 
ern view, that the confession of Peter was in essence synonymous 
with the Nicene creed and described the bishop apostle as the 
rock upon which the Church had been established against false 
doctrine.*° But it was the trustworthy authority of Peter to 
which the East paid its homage in the fourth century, not the 
wealth nor the power of Rome. 

Such in general outline were the causes which we find making 
for the early development of the papal office. As for the form 


62 Infra, pp. 641, 644, 651, 681. 64 Infra, pp. 619, 675. 
63 Infra, p. 686. 65 Infra, pp. 644, 666. 


228 THE SEE OF PETER 


which that office assumed, the functions which the Roman bishop 
exercised as leader of the Church, they have been largely in- 
dicated in the preceding paragraphs. The first was that of 
defining doctrine. From the time when Eleutherus was asked 
to condemn the Montanists, through the period when Callistus, 
Stephen and Dionysius revised and interpreted dogma, down 
to the days when the Nicene creed was defended on the ground 
of its Roman origin and Liberius and Damasus endorsed or 
rejected eastern declarations of faith according as they did or 
did not measure up to their own standards, the Roman bishops 
asserted their right to speak for the tradition of Peter. In the 
fourth century, when the eastern churches had for the time being 
lost confidence in their own ability to maintain truth, the only 
authority that could be weighed against Rome was a great 
council, in which, as Constantine once said, the Spirit of God 
must certainly be present enlightening his wise bishops. But 
the veneration which the orthodox multitude felt for Nicaea did 
not in itself militate against an equal or even greater veneration 
for Rome. Were they not both agreed upon the creed? Was 
not the source of that creed Roman, its wider promulgation 
Nicene? There was no need to decide whether its binding force 
came more from Rome or from the council. An Italian synod 
later repudiated the creed of the great Council of Rimini on the 
ground that it had never been ratified by the bishop of Rome.* 

The second prerogative claimed by the Roman bishops, a 
natural corollary to the first, was that of excluding from their 
communion all who disagreed with them on what they considered 
essentials in faith or practice. Victor and Stephen made the 
first sweeping uses of this power with sensational effect.°* In 
the fourth century, the situation was inevitably complicated by 
the entrance of the emperors upon the stage of ecclesiastical 
politics and their frequent: resorts to physical violence to sup- 
press the parties in the Church of which they disapproved. But 
the Roman bishops continued independently to prescribe the 
terms on which they themselves would receive their fellows into 
communion. Julius and Liberius examined and passed upon the 


66 Infra, p. 488. 87 Infra, p. 635. 68 Infra, pp. 282, 417. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 229 


professions of their eastern visitors. In one case, at least, an 
Asiatic church received back, at Liberius’ bidding, a bishop whom 
it had previously deposed for his errors. Damasus laid down 
a creed which the eastern bishops must endorse without the 
alteration of a word, if they were to be taken into his fellow- 
ship.” The power to bind and loose meant first of all the right 
to open and close the haven of the orthodox church of Peter to 
those who believed or failed to believe its authentic doctrine. 
Almost immediately a third prerogative grew out of the other 
two, the right to give final judgment in cases of episcopal con- 
troversy. Whether Origen’s defense to Fabianus * was a case 
in point may be considered doubtful, but later in the third cen- 
tury, appeals from the bishops of Gaul and Spain were sent to 
Stephen ” and a charge against Dionysius of Alexandria was 
carried to Dionysius of Rome.” Aurelian’s appointment of 
Felix to judge the contest at Antioch “* gave an impetus to the 
development of this custom. Constantine turned over to Mil- 
tiades the Donatist difficulty at Carthage.” Julius asked the 
bishops at Antioch if they were not aware that their accusations 
against Athanasius ought to have been brought before him.” 
The western contingent at Sardica formally conferred upon the 
bishop of Rome the right to try in person or through his ap- 
pointees any case of dispute involving a bishop anywhere that 
might be appealed to him.” When Damasus had difficulty in 
executing his verdicts on the malcontent bishops in Italy and 
could get no response whatever to his communications to Resti- 
tutus of Carthage, a Roman synod addressed a petition to the 
emperors, asking them to confirm by civil statute the power of 
their bishop to judge all metropolitans and all appeals regard- 
ing bishops and to instruct the officials of the government to see 
that his power was enforced. The emperors obligingly complied, 
stipulating merely that the penalty imposed by the Roman bishop 
should not go beyond the exclusion of the offender from his see.” 
Yet Damasus sometimes hesitated to exert this prerogative, as 


69 Infra, pp. 505, 513, 592. . 6 Infra, Pp. 441. 
70 Infra, pp. 655, 646, 647, 673. o Infra, p. 457. 
71 Infra, p. 315. 6 Infra, p. 515. 
72 Infra, pp. 399, 402. 77 Infra, p. 520. 


73 Infra, p. 434. 78 Infra, pp. 669, 672. 


230 THE SEE OF PETER 


witness his refusal to proceed further in the affair of the Pris- 
cillianists.”” He was also unable to get the case of Constanti- 
nople brought before him in 381 and 382.°° After all, when the 
emperor had once intervened in a situation, it became delicate 
ground for any subject to tread upon, no matter what his legal 
privileges. 

The Roman bishops of the late fourth century added to their 
exercise of these three established prerogatives some measures 
that can only be described as experiments in the field of general 
administrative control. Liberius issued letters of instruction to 
the bishops of the West on the methods they should use in 
restoring Arian apostates.** Damasus sent directions to the 
Spanish bishops how to treat the Priscillianists.°* Both Liberius’ 


and Damasus’ letters on these topics have been lost, but a similar 


and longer letter from their successor Siricius to another bishop 
of Spain is usually regarded as opening the series of the so- 
called Papal Decretals or executive regulations put forth for the 
guidance of bishops at large by their head, the bishop of Rome.** 
Julius and Damasus convoked councils of greater size than ordi- 
nary metropolitan synods. They summoned bishops from Gaul 
and from Greece and, with the emperor’s sanction, even called 
upon the bishops of the East to meet at Rome.®**? A beginning 
was being made at the creation of a centralized system of super- 
vision over all the churches. | 

Besides the powers that taken together made up the substance 
of the hegemony exercised by the Roman bishop, a few special 
marks of dignity had come to be associated with his office. 
He had his dwelling in an imperial palace and he rarely left 
his see, except when compelled to do so by a persecuting gov- 
ernment. He may, of course, have made journeys that are not 
reported but, as far as we hear, all business that required his 
attention was uniformly carried to him. The bishops of Alex- 
andria and Antioch went hither and thither, to Nicaea or to Con- 
stantinople, but the bishop of Rome sent a deputy, if he wished 
to be represented at any assembly held outside Rome. The Coun- 
cils of Arles and Sardica understood that he could not leave 


79 Infra, p. 600. 81 Infra, p 690. 82a Infra, pp. 699-708. 
80 Infra, pp. 625, 626. 82 Infra, p. 692. 82b Infra, pp. 505, 604, 608. 


a a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 231 


his apostolic seat.** The eastern bishops asked Damasus to 
send commissioners to visit them.** One dignity, however, to 
which he aspired in the fourth century he did not attain. The 
fact that an accusation against Silvester had been investigated by 
Constantine and that the suit against Damasus had been trans- 
ferred by Gratian from the Roman prefect’s court to his own, 
emboldened Damasus and his clergy to ask for a decree formally 
exempting the bishop of Rome thenceforth from any civil juris- 
diction but the emperor’s. It was the first step on the path that 
would lead ultimately to the declaration that the Pope could be 
tried by no man. But the emperors demurred at that request 
and the Roman bishop, like his colleagues, remained for a while 
longer as a citizen under the authority of the magistrates. 

In sum, these powers and privileges amounted to the working 
out in practice of the theory that the Roman bishop held the 
post of “bishop of the bishops,” “ episcopus episcoporum.” *° 
As yet he was hardly more than that, head of the widespread 
college of bishops, defining for them what they were to profess 
and teach their flocks, imposing uniformity and discipline upon 
them, calling them to account if they disobeyed. As yet he was 
making no attempt to reach past them to the lower clergy or to 
the laity or to build up any direct relation with the mass of the 
people of God. Each bishop was still sole head within the local 
church and his word therein was final. The Pope had scarcely 
begun to realize the possibilities implied in the later title servus 
servorum Dei.** 

It is clear from all this also how far his authority had come 
to be accepted by the orthodox churches of the fourth century, 
and where such resistance as it met was chiefly centered. In 
the West, as we have pointed out, a combination of causes had 
from the first set the Roman bishop on an eminence above his 
fellows. One has only to read the language of the councils of 
Arles and Sardica or of Damasus’ later synods or of men like 
Hosius and Hilary to realize that the Roman supremacy was 
to them an accomplished and unassailable fact. The East, on 
the other hand, had heard with a shock of indignation and 


83 Infra, pp. 480, 527. 84 Infra, pp. 639, 641. 85 Infra, pp. 301, 411. 
85a But note the change already showing in Siricius’ Decretal, infra, pp. 697 ff. 


232 THE SEE OF PETER 


amazement the claim of Stephen to set his single prerogative over 
all their ancient traditions and institutions. Was not Christian- 
ity itself an eastern faith? In one form or another that resent- 
ful query was made again and again, by Firmilian, by the eastern 
episcopate at Antioch, at Sardica and at Constantinople. But 
the exigencies of the fourth century drove the orthodox leaders 
of the eastern churches to take refuge at Rome or to look to 
Rome for help against their heretical emperors and compatriots. 
The bishop of Rome was the one free and steadfast religious 
power in the whole world. The slow and grudging change in 
the attitude of the eastern bishops found expression in that 
canon of the Council of Constantinople which we have already 
described. The canons of Chalcedon in the next century show 
how much further that change was yet to go. 

For Damasus, so far as one may judge, there was no earthly 
authority comparable to his own but that of the emperors. Ac- 
tually their authority had not been so much felt within the Church 
during the period that they were pagan. They were then an 
external and material force, destructive on occasion, like an 
earthquake or a pestilence, and as such to be patiently endured 
along with other mundane afflictions. They could not touch the 
internal springs of the ecclesiastical organism. Inwardly the 
Church was free. Not until the emperors themselves entered 
the Church could they affect it continually and profoundly from 
within, at times laying violent hands upon its politics and its 
creeds, at other times standing more reserved in the background 
but ready always to assist and give the deciding word, watching 
what the councils said and did, retaining the right to allow or 
to prohibit every act. For the most part, the Roman bishop 
availed himself unhesitatingly of all the support and favor the 
emperors would give him. As long as their might was on his 
side he invoked it to crush opposition and to increase his own 
splendor and prestige. Even when the Arian Constantius de- 
manded his apostasy and he refused and went into exile in con- 
sequence, he made no complaint against imperial intrusion, as 
such, into religious affairs.*° The few protests that came from 


86 Infra, pp. 572-576. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 233 


the West in the name of ecclesiastical liberty were the work of 
heretics, like the Donatists,*” or of provincial bishops, like Hosius 
and Hilary.** Not until the fifth century, when the system of 
imperial government in the West had broken down, did the popes 
enunciate the principle of the two powers and solemnly declare 
the right of the Church and its officers to religious independence. 

But although the popes of the fourth century had not yet 
ventured to contest the privilege of the emperor to treat the 
Church as he did his other departments of state, they possessed 
in the Petrine theory, as it had by that time been worked out 
and generally accepted, a charter that could easily be extended 
in the future to cover whatever powers they might choose to 
wield. Thirty-four years after Damasus’ death, a clear state- 
ment of it was sent by Bishop Zosimus to a synod at Carthage.* 
A quotation from his letter puts the Roman position before us 
finally in its essentials, as the fourth century understood it. 
“The tradition of the Fathers ascribed such authority to the 
Apostolic See that no one dared to dispute its judgment but by 
canons and rules they always preserved it. And passing down 
to the present day, the constitution of the Church still pays 
through its laws the reverence it owes to the name of Peter, 
from which it is itself derived.*® For canonical antiquity, it is 
universally reported, attributed to this apostle such might from 
the promise of Christ our God himself that he could loose what 
was bound and bind what was loosed. And an equal position 
of power has been committed to those who by his permission 
have obtained the inheritance of his see. For Peter has the care 
of all the churches but especially of this one, where he himself 
had his see. He suffers no prerogative to be withheld from it 


87 Infra, pp. 458, 541, n. 173. 

88 Infra, pp. 541, Nn. 173; 577. It is curious to see so ardent a religious enthu- 
siast as Gregory Nazianzen, who had known, too, the wretchedness produced by 
imperial persecution, appealing to Theodosius to compel the bishops at Constanti- 
nople to come to terms, if their own sense of duty to the Church does not bring 
them to it. Infra, p. 685. 

89 Letter of March 21, 418. Collectio Avellana, 50, Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vol. XXXV, pp. 115-116. Cf. the statements of 
Siricius and Innocent I, bishops between Damasus and Zosimus, given infra, pp. 
690, 707, and in C. Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums (4th ed., Tiibingen, 
1924), pp. 62-64. 

90 Compare this with the ascription to Peter of the founding of the institution 
of the episcopacy, supra, p. 111; infra, pp. 328, 348. 


234 THE SEE OF PETER 


nor any wind of opinion to shake it, for he himself has estab- 
lished for it the firm and unassailable foundation of his own 
name, which no one may rashly impugn without peril to him- 
self. Since then Peter is the source of its great authority and the 
statutes of ali the Fathers since his time have confirmed it, now 
by every human and divine law and constitution it is ordained 
that the church of Rome, where he once held sway, still pos- 
sesses the power of his name. You are not ignorant but well 
aware of this, dearest brothers, and as bishops you must com- 
prehend it.” 


PART I 


THE BISHOPRIC OF THE ROMAN 
APOSTOLIC CHURCH 


1. THE BENEVOLENCE OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 


CLEMENT 
(fl. c. 96) 


The fifth chapter of this epistle has been quoted in an earlier 
section for the evidence it contains as to the death of the apostle 
Peter. The extracts which follow are chosen to show the tone 
and bearing of the first Roman bishop who wrote a letter that 
was preserved by posterity. The letter, as we said before, was 
sent in the name of the Roman church and keeps throughout the 
form of the first person plural. It makes no allusion whatever 
to Clement, the individual, or to his position. It was addressed 
to another apostolic church, where Peter and Paul had both 
labored before they came to Rome,’ and it opens with a half 
apology for delay, as if under the circumstances the Corinthians 
might have expected to hear from the Romans more promptly. 
It proceeds to discuss gravely and at considerable length the 
anarchical state into which the Corinthian brethren had fallen, 
reminding them of their solemn faith and duty and urging them 
to display more self-control and forbearance and to support loy- 
ally the officers whom they themselves had elected. The Roman 
church assumes the right to remonstrate, apparently because of 
its own past record and present standing, as a body that had 
itself received apostolic traditions, passed through fiery ordeals 
and sufferings and emerged with its unity and charity unim- 
paired. Its spirit is one of concern for the welfare and good 
name of the Christian brotherhood, which the Christians in 
Corinth had perversely imperilled. Its words, it knows, are the 
words of God speaking through it. For that reason the Corin- 
| 1 Supra, pp. 68-69. 2 Supra, p. 76. 

235 


236 THE SEE OF PETER 


thians must beware of disobedience; at any rate, even if some 
refuse to heed, the Roman conscience is henceforward clear. 

Already all bishops and deacons are regarded as clothed with 
’ authority derived by the apostles from Christ and transmitted 
by them in turn to the men whom they selected to fill the offices 
in the churches. No one bishop is mentioned as greater than 
another. The episcopate and diaconate, that serve the “flock of 
Christ ” and offer its sacrifices, are the objects of defence. The 
plea is above all for harmony and order.’ 


Ad Corinthios, 1, 42, 44, 57, 59, 63. Text. Apostolic 
Fathers, ed. by K. Lake (The Loeb Classical Library), 
I, 8-10, 78-80, 82-84, 106-108, I10—-112, 118, I109. 


The church of God that is at Rome to the church of God 
that is at Corinth, to those who are called and sanctified 
by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace 
to you and peace from God Almighty be multiplied through 
Jesus Christ. 

1 Owing to the sudden and repeated calamities and 
afflictions which have befallen us,* we think that we have 
been somewhat slow in turning our attention to the divisions 
that have arisen among you, beloved, and to the abhorrent 
and unholy sedition, so foreign and strange to God’s elect, 
that a few headstrong and wayward persons have stirred up 
to such a frenzy as greatly to vilify your name, once vener- 
able, renowned and lovely in the eyes of all men. For who 
that has tarried among you has not approved your virtuous 
and steadfast faith? Who has not admired your sober and 
patient devotion in Christ? Who has not spread abroad the 
munificent character of your hospitality? Who has not 
congratulated you on your sound and perfect knowledge? 
For you did everything without respect of persons and 


3 For bibliography on Clement, vide supra, p. 67. 
4 This reference may be to the persecution under Domitian, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 237 


walked in the ordinances of God, submitting yourselves to 
your rulers and rendering due honor to the elders among 
you. On the young too you enjoined temperate and modest 
thought. The women you charged to fulfil all their duties 
with a blameless, seemly and pure conscience and to be con- 
tent with their own husbands, as is meet; you taught them 
also to observe the rule of obedience and to manage the 
affairs of their households in decorum and all discretion. . . . 

42 The apostles received the gospel for us from the 
Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ, 
therefore, is from God and the apostles from Christ. In 
each case, then, they were in the appointed order of the 
will of God. So, having received their instructions and 
being completely assured by the resurrection of our Lord 
Jesus Christ and confident in the word of God, they went 
forth in full assurance of the Holy Ghost, proclaiming that 
the kingdom of God was at hand. Thus they preached 
from place to place and city to city and ordained those who 
were their first fruits, when they had tested them by the 
Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should after- 
wards believe.” Nor was this a new thing, for many years 
earlier there had been written word of bishops and deacons; 
for thus saith the Scripture in a certain place: “I will 
establish their bishops in righteousness and their deacons 
irrarenthys? >. 

44 Our apostles also knew through our Lord Jesus 
Christ that there would be strife over the title of bishop. 
For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had received 
perfect foreknowledge, they appointed to office those whom 

5 Philippians I, 1. 

6 This is a loose quotation from the Septuagint version of Isaias LX, 17, 
which is correctly translated in the Douay Version: “ And I will make thy visita- 
tion peace and thy overseers justice.’ The King James Version translates: “I will 
also make thy officers [in the sense of magistrates] peace and thine exactors [in 
the sense of taskmasters] righteousness.” Cf. the J. B. Lightfoot text of this 
epistle of Clement, Chap. XLII, n. 12 (The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. I, Vol. II, p. 


129). Lightfoot calls attention to the fact that Irenaeus in applying the passage 
to the Christian ministry (Haereses IV, 26, 5) quotes the Septuagint text correctly. 


238 ‘THE SEE OF PETER 


we have mentioned and afterwards made provision that 
when they should fall asleep, other approved men should 
~ succeed to their ministry. We, accordingly, believe that it 
is not right to dismiss from their ministry those who were 
appointed by them or afterwards by other eminent men 
with the consent of the whole church and who have served - 
the flock of Christ without fault, humbly, peaceably and 
disinterestedly, and received for a long time the good testi- 
mony of everyone. For our sin will not be small if we 
remove from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and 
holily offered its sacrifices. Blessed are the presbyters ‘ 
who have finished ere now their journey and obtained a 
fruitful and perfect release, for they have no dread that 
anyone shall remove them from their appointed place. .. . 

57 You, therefore, that laid the foundation of sedition, 
submit yourselves unto the presbyters and receive correction 
unto repentance, bending the knees of your hearts. Learn 
to be submissive and lay aside the proud and boastful 
stubbornness of your tongues... . 

59 But if some be disobedient unto the words spoken 
by him [God] through us, let them see that they will in- 
volve themselves in grave transgression and danger, but 
we shall be guiltless of their sin and shall pray with instant 
entreaty and supplication, that the Creator of all things may 
guard unhurt unto the end the number of his elect that have 
been numbered in all the world through his beloved Son 
Jesus Christ, through whom he has called us from darkness 
to light, from ignorance to the full knowledge of the glory 
of his name... . 

63... For you will give us joy and gladness if you 


7 The word “ presbyters ” or “‘ elders ” seems to be used here in its first sense, 
as a general title for the leaders and officers in the Church, the “ seniores,” bishops 
and deacons. Not until the second century does it appear to denote a special group 
of ministers, the priests, and even then it may still keep its inclusive meaning. See, 
for instance, the use of it by Irenaeus, zmfra, pp. 266, 283. J. F. J. Jackson and 
K. Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, I, Prolegomena, p. 332; A. Harnack, 
Appendix to edition of Didache (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der 
altchristlichen Literatur, Vol. II+-2, 1884). 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 230 


are obedient to the things which we have written through 
the Holy Spirit and root out the wicked passions of your 
jealousy in compliance with the request we have made in 
this letter for peace and harmony. And we have sent you 
faithful and prudent men that have walked among us blame- 
lessly from youth to old age and they shall be witnesses 
between you and us. This we have done that you may 
know that all our care has been and still is that you should 
be speedily at peace. 


IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH 
(c. 116) 


The letters of Ignatius of Antioch follow naturally upon 
Clement’s in a sequence both of time and of ideas.* Written 
twenty years later, they show first of all the quick enhancement 
of the position of the bishop in the Church. Clement argues, of 
course, for an orderly church, obedient to the admonitions of 
its bishops and its deacons. Though the bishop is named first, 
as first in dignity, allegiance is required equally to the whole 
body of officers. Though there is distinction of function, there 
is as yet no conspicuous distinction of rank. By the time of 
Ignatius, the bishop looms up high above all the rest as the pecul- 
iar embodiment of heavenly authority and grace. Without the 
bishop no sacrament is valid; without him there is indeed no 
church.® 

To Ignatius too, Asiatic though he is and head of one of the 
oldest and most distinguished of gentile churches, the Roman 
community seems to stand upon a level somewhat above that of 
the others to whom he writes. To no other does he address quite 
such ardent phrases of praise for its unwavering steadfastness 


8 For previous reference to Ignatius and bibliography, vide supra, pp. 71-72. 

9 The question naturally arises how far Ignatius’ views of the episcopacy may 
have been peculiar to himself or how far they may have represented a sentiment 
confined to Antioch, created there perhaps by his own magnetic and forceful 
personality. For discussion of these intricacies see the books mentioned in the 
bibliography. 


240 THE SEE OF PETER 


and faith. One of the most significant of these phrases we have 
_ translated here as ‘‘ foremost in love.” Catholic scholars have 
been apt to interpret it rather as “ presiding over the society of 
love,”’ that is the Christian fellowship, and have taken it as an 
acknowledgment of a genuine Roman supremacy at this early 
date. To others it has seemed merely a reference to the brotherly 
interest shown by the Romans in members of other churches, 
the generous quality of which Clement speaks, of which his letter 
is an example, and for which the Roman Christians were already 
renowned abroad.*® Ignatius writes to them now as sure of their 
concern not only for himself but also for the other humbler 
martyrs from Syria, who are due to reach Rome before him, and 
for the church he has left behind at Antioch, which is for the 
moment bishopless. He begs only that they will not in their 

loving kindness hinder his martyrdom. 


Ad Smyrnaeos, 8. Text. The Apostolic Fathers, ed. by 
K. Lake (The Loeb Classical Library), I, 260. 


8 ... Do ye all follow your bishop, as Jesus Christ 
followed the Father, and the presbyters, as if they were the 
apostles, and pay heed to the deacons, as to the command- 
ment of God. Let no man perform any churchly act apart 
from the bishop. Let that eucharist be regarded as valid 
which is celebrated by the bishop or by one whom he ap- 
points. Wheresoever the bishop appears, there let the 
people be, even as where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic 
Church.” It is not lawful either to baptize or to hold a love- 
feast ** without the bishop, but whatever he approves this 
is well-pleasing also to God. 


10 For special articles on Ignatius’ attitude toward the Roman church, see 
A. Harnack, Das Zeugniss des Ignatius tiber das Ansehen der romischen Gemeindes 
in Satzungsberichte der Koniglichen Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Ber- 
lin, 1896), pp. 111-131; J. Chapman, St. Ignace d’Antioch et l’Eglise Romaine, in 
Revue Benédictine (Maredsous, 1896), Vol. XIII, pp. 385-400. 

11 Ignatius is the first to use the phrase “ catholic Church,” in the sense of 
the whole body of believers. 

12 @yarn. The word means “love” and was so used by Paul and other 
primitive Christians. It was also used to designate the eucharistic meal, at which 
all members of the church sat together around a common table. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 241 


Ad Romanos, 1, 3, 4,9, 10. Text. Apostolic Fathers, ed. 
by K. Lake (The Loeb Classical Library), I, 224 sqq. 


1 Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to her that has found 
mercy in the bounty of the Father most high and of Jesus 
Christ, his only Son, to the church that is beloved and 
enlightened through the will of him who has willed all 
things that are, according to the love of Jesus Christ our 
God, even to her that is preéminent in the land of the 
Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of bless- 
ing, worthy of praise, worthy of prosperity, worthy in her 
purity and foremost in love,* upholding the name of Christ 
and upholding the name of the Father, to them that are 
united in flesh and spirit with his every commandment, filled 
with the grace of God without wavering and cleansed from 
alien stain, abundant greeting in Jesus Christ our God... . 

3 You have never been grudging to any one; you have 
been teachers of others. And my desire is that the instruc- 
tion which you give when you teach shall hold fast. Only 
pray that I may have strength within and without, so that 
I may find not only the speech but also the impulse, that 
I may not only be called a Christian but also be proved one. 
For if I be proved one, then can I also be called one and 
then be esteemed faithful, when I am no more visible on 
the earth. Nothing visible is good. For our Lord Jesus 
Christ, now that he is in the Father, is the more plainly 
visible. . 

4 I write to all the churches and I bid all men know 
that of my own free will I die for God, unless you prevent 


13 gzpoxabnuen ris ayarjs. The first word is the same as that translated 
just above, “that is preéminent,” etc. It is also employed by Ignatius to denote 
the presidency of bishop or presbyter over the community of believers. Ad Mag- 
nesios, 6. Vide supra, pp. 239, 240. The last word is the one described in the 
preceding note. This is the first of several obscure and vague passages in the 
early Fathers that testify to a prominence or leadership of the Roman church 
but leave one uncertain as to the exact nature or extent of the distinction. Vide 
supra, p. 221. 

14 One of Ignatius’ enigmatic passages. Apparently he means to say: “ Noth- 
ing visible to the material eye is truly good and Jesus Christ, now that he is no 
longer visible in the flesh, is the more clearly manifest as God.” 


242 THE SEE OF PETER 


me. ... Supplicate Christ for me that through these in- 
- struments *° I may be made a sacrifice to God. . . . 

g Remember in your prayers that church in Syria that 
has God for its shepherd in my stead. Its sole bishop is 
Jesus Christ and your love. ... My spirit greets you, as 
does the love of the churches, which have received me in the 
name of Jesus Christ, not as a mere wayfarer. For even 
those that did not lie on my road according to the flesh 
went ahead of me from city to city. 

10 I write you this from Smyrna by the blessed 
Ephesians. And Crocus, one dear to me, is also with me 
and many others. As for those who preceded me from 
Syria to Rome to the glory of God, I trust you have seen 
them. Tell them that I am near at hand. They all are 
worthy of God and of you and it is right that you should 
refresh them in every way. I have written this to you on 
the twenty-fourth of August. Farewell unto the end, in the 
steadfastness of Jesus Christ. 


HERMAS OF ROME 


(c. 150) | 

The Shepherd of Hermas is a Roman apocalyptic work of the 
second century, a series of visions recorded by one who claims 
to be simply the vehicle for the spirit that has visited him.*® In 
form, it reminds the reader of the Ascension of Isaiah." It con- 
tains a commission to one Clement, who is described as the 
spokesman of the Roman church, and for that reason it has been 
sometimes assigned to the period of Clement I, that is, to the 
opening of the second century. On the other hand, the author 
of the Muratorian Fragment, composed about 170-180, says 
positively: ‘‘ But the Shepherd was written quite recently in our 

15 J.e., the wild beasts of the arena. 

16 It is probably connected with other cryptic writings of the time, such as 


the Corpus Hermeticum. 
17 Supra, pp. 69-71. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 243 


own time by Hermas, while his brother Pius, the bishop, was 
filling the chair of the church of the city of Rome.” ** Pius was 
bishop probably somewhere between 140 and 155. The tone of 
Hermas seems more suited to this later date. The Church which 
he visualizes has weathered persecutions in the past but is now 
growing lax in its security and losing its oldtime ardor and spir- 
ituality. The description suggests a period of outward quiet, 
like that under Antoninus Pius, 138-161. In case the later date 
is correct, the allusion to Clement may have been introduced to 
give the book an appearance of greater age and therefore more 
authority. ‘That its message was widely received as opportune 
and helpful in the solution of second-century difficulties is proved 
by the high regard in which it soon came to be held in distant 
places. Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage, Clement and 
Origen of Alexandria, the ablest leaders of the late second and 
early third century, speak of it with profound respect and it 
seems to have been read frequently in the churches. A little 
later, however, it lost its timeliness and dropped gradually out 
of use. Jerome says that in his day it was almost unknown 
among the Latins.” 

Parts of the Shepherd are elliptical and obscure, probably 
intentionally so, as is apt to be the case in apocalyptic writ- 
ings. But the hard problem with which the author is struggling 
stands out plainly enough. It is that of the question of the 
forgiveness of sins committed after baptism. The primitive, 
austere belief had been that Christians, who had been once 
washed from sin, were capable of living thereafter without fur- 
ther serious lapse and that those who after baptism were so 
weak as to commit a mortal offense, such as adultery or apostasy, 
were irremediably lost and could hope for no second chance of 
salvation.”° In Hermas’ time, it was becoming obvious that few 
under that theory would be saved. Were the erring multitudes 
inevitably doomed? What had become of the mercy of God? 
Hermas through a long course of revelations arrives at the con- 


18 The text of the Muratorian Fragment is printed in C. Mirbt, Quellen zur 
Geschichte des Papsttums (4th ed.), No. 31. Translation in J. C. Ayer, Source 
Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 117-120. 

19 De Viris Illustribus, 10. 

20 See, for example, Hebrews, VI, 4-6. 


244 THE SEE OF PETER 


clusion that perfect uprightness is not demanded of human 
frailty and that one fall after baptism will be forgiven to those 
who repent. He explains carefully the methods and efficacy of 
repentance and fasting. It is the first stage in the slow develop- 
ment of doctrine that is to arrive ultimately at the theory of 
the long-suffering and forgiving patience of the Church and the 
sacrament and code of penance.”* 

Our excerpt consists merely of the sentences which contain 
the reference to Clement. As the use of Clement’s name is per- 
haps a deliberate anachronism, the reference is valuable only for 
the suggestion it gives as to a Roman bishop’s relations with 
churches beyond Rome. Hermas proposes to have his book set 
in circulation among “the cities abroad ” by means of Clement, 
“for that is his duty.” It seems unlikely that he would have 
said this if he had not known of some correspondence between 
a Roman bishop and other branches of the Church. We are led 
to wonder if Bishop Pius had a hand in the subsequent rapid 
circulation of the Shepherd through the churches of Christen- 
dom. 


On Hermas see A. Mitchell, Shepherd of Hermas, in J. Hastings, Dic- 
tionary of the Apostolic Church (2 vols., New York, 1916-1918); J. Réville, 
La Valeur du Témoignage Historique du Pasteur d’Hermas (Paris, 1900); 
P. Batiffol, Hermas et le Probléme Moral au Second Siécle in Revue Biblique 
(Paris, 1901), Vol. X, pp. 337-351; P. Batiffol, Etudes d’Histoire et de 
Théologie Positive (Paris, 1902), pp. 45-68; A. Stahl, Patristiche Unter- 
suchungen (3 pts., Leipzig, 1901), Pt. III, Der Hirt des Hermas; L. Du- 
chesne, Early History of the Christian Church (trans. from 4th ed., by C. 
Jenkins, 3 vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. I, pp. 165-171. 


Pastor, Vision II, 4. Text and translation. The Apostolic 
Fathers, ed. by K. Lake (The Loeb Classical Library), 
IT, 24. 


4, 1 And a revelation, brethren, was made to me, as I 
slept, by a beautiful young man, who said to me: “ Who, 
do you think, is the ancient lady from whom you received 

21 Infra, pp. 296, 310, 332, 351, 370. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 245 


the little book? ” I said: “‘ The Sibyl.” ‘ You are wrong,” 
he said; “it is not she.” ‘‘ Who then is it?” I said. “ The 
Church,” he said. I replied to him: ‘“ Why then is she 
old? ” ‘“ Because,” he said, ‘‘ she was established the first 
of all things; for this reason she is old and for her sake the 
world was framed.” 

2 And afterwards I saw a vision in my house. The 
ancient lady came and asked me if I had already given the 
book to the presbyters. I said that I had not given it. And 
she said: ‘‘ You have done well, for I have some words to 
add. But when I finish all the words, they shall be made 
known to all the elect through you. 

3 For you will write two little books and you will 
send one to Clement and the other to Grapte.” And 
Clement will send his to the cities abroad, for that is his 
duty. And Grapte will instruct the widows and orphans. 
And you will read it yourself in this city in company with 
the presbyters * who will preside over the church. 


2. THE TRADITION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 
ANICETUS 


(c. 154-c. 165) 


Anicetus was the successor of Bishop Pius, who according to 
tradition was the brother of Hermas, who wrote the Shepherd.** 
With him we step for a short instant out of the foggy atmos- 
phere of vague and baffling hints and conjectures into something 
that by contrast looks almost like daylight. For we have a real 
story about Anicetus, told by someone who was either an eyewit- 
ness himself or who got it from eyewitnesses within ten years of 
its occurrence. The incident is small but concrete and signifi- 
cant not only as to the character of Anicetus but also as to the 

22 Grapte was perhaps a deaconess. 


23 On the use of this word vide supra, p. 238, n. 7. 
24 Supra, p. 243. 


246 | THE SEE OF PETER 


tenacity that already marked the Roman tradition even in mat- 
ters of detail. 

The story is told by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, who must 
have passed through Rome somewhere between the years 155 
and 165, on his way from the home of his youth in Asia Minor 
to settle in Gaul.” It relates to a visit paid to Rome about 154 
or 155 by the aged Polycarp, the last notable survivor of the 
generation that heard the preaching of the apostles, who himself 
was to die the next year as a martyr in Smyrna. Irenaeus had 
previously in Asia listened to his recollections of John, the be- 
loved disciple of the Lord.”* 

Already petty differences in practice were springing up in the 
churches dotted here and there about the Empire. One of the 
most serious in their own estimation was the variation in 
the method of fixing each year the date of the Easter festival. 
In Asia Minor, the churches had generally kept in mind the orig- 
inal connection of the Lord’s resurrection with the Jewish Pass- 
over and had commemorated it yearly at the Passover season, 
that is, on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, re- 
gardless of the day of the week on which it might fall. This 
had been the habit of the group of apostolic teachers in Asia. 
On the other hand, both at Rome and elsewhere, in Syria, Greece 
and Egypt, the churches had considered it more important to 
keep the exact day of the week and had held their celebration 
on the Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal 
equinox, thus severing the connection with the Passover and 
creating a new and distinctively Christian feast. Apparently 
this had become the custom wherever the influences of Peter 
and Paul had predominated. As a result, the most solemn anni- 
versary of the Christian year was observed on different days by 
different branches of the Church. The divergence was felt to be 
deplorable but so far no decided measures had been taken to 
end it. 

At this time, Polycarp, nearly ninety years of age, made the 

25 This story is part of a long letter written by Irenaeus to Bishop Victor 
about 198. For the context vide supra, pp. 282-284. 


26 Eusebius repeats some of Polycarp’s beautiful reminiscences of the apostle 
John. Historia Ecclesiastica, Ill, 23. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 247 


long journey by sea and land from Smyrna to Rome. Why he 
chose to go at all, whether to confer with the Roman Christians 
in an effort to knit closer the bonds between the brethren in the 
face of rising heresies or not, we are not told. That he and 
Bishop Anicetus discussed the points of variance, especially the 
question of the date of Easter, Irenaeus says positively and also 
that neither could persuade the other to accept his own view. 
Polycarp certainly could not be expected to abandon the practice 
he had learned directly from John’s own example. The curious 
thing is that Anicetus, the younger man, second or third removed 
from any contact with apostolic authority, was equally sure that 
he could not alter the custom of his predecessors even out of 
deference to his venerable guest. He entertained Polycarp with 
honor and invited him to perform the eucharistic service in his 
church. Polycarp preached there against the Gnostics, pointing 
out that in all essential things the Roman tradition harmonized 
with that which he had himself received from the apostles in 
Asia.2”._ The two bishops parted as friends at peace but the 
irritating little difference between the churches was not healed. 
A few years later a Roman bishop, less tolerant than Anicetus, 
attempted to compel uniformity by outlawing the followers of 
Polycarp and John.” 


Quotation from Irenaeus, given by Eusebius, Historia Ec- 
clesiastica, V, 24. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die grie- 
chischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahr- 
hunderte), II’, 496. 


And when the blessed Polycarp was in Rome, in the 
time of Anicetus, they held views differing slightly about 
various points but they immediately made peace with one 
another and would not quarrel even over this, their chief 
disagreement. For neither could Anicetus persuade Poly- 


27 This last piece of information is given by Irenaeus in another connection. 
Infra, pp. 269-270. 

28 The communities that clung to the Asiatic custom were in time denounced 
as heretics under the name of Quartodecimanians. The Easter controversy in one 
form or another dragged on for several centuries. Infra, pp. 469, 472, 482, 487. 


248 THE SEE OF PETER 


carp not to observe” what he had always observed in 
company with John, the disciple of our Lord, and the other 
apostles whom he had known. Nor could Polycarp prevail 
upon Anicetus to adopt that observance, since he said that 
he ought to adhere to the custom of the presbyters *° who had 
preceded him. But in spite of all this they communed to- 
gether and in the church Anicetus yielded the administration 
of the eucharist to Polycarp, plainly as a mark of respect. 
And they parted from one another in peace, both those who 
kept the observance and those who did not, maintaining the 
peace of the whole Church. 


HEGESIPPUS OF SYRIA 
(fl. c. 160-c. 175) 


While Anicetus was still presiding as bishop over the weekly 
gatherings of Roman Christians, another traveller came from 
the East to visit the community, one Hegesippus, a Syrian by 
birth, on a tour to discover from the various sources of apostolic 
tradition just what was the true and original Christian doctrine.*” 
The questions that troubled Hegesippus were not so much de- 
tails of procedure, like the determination of the date of Easter, 
but more fundamental problems of faith. Gnostic teachers,** 
who claimed to dignify the new religion by providing it with a 
background of cosmic philosophy and denying the humanity of 
its Founder, were attracting many adherents and Hegesippus set 
out to refute them by making a round of the apostolic churches 
and collecting from their bishops such reminiscences as they 
could give him of the apostles’ own preachings. The authen- 
ticity of these reminiscences in each case was guaranteed by the 
continuous line of episcopal succession in each church reaching 
back to the apostles’ days. 


29 The “ observance ” is that of the fourteenth day of Nisan. 

30 On the use here of the word “ presbyters,” vide supra, p. 238, n. 7. 

30a On Abercius, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, who visited Rome about 170 
and “saw the people who hold aloft the glorious seal,” vide, Lightfoot, Apostolic 
Fathers, Pt. 2, Vol. I, pp. 476 ff. 

81 On the Gnostics vide supra, p. 77, n. 38. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 240 


The Memorabilia which Hegesippus composed after his re- 
turn to his native land contained an account of what he had 
seen and learned. That his trip was satisfactory, as far as estab- 
lishing the existence of a body of essentially harmonious tradi- 
tion accepted by all the leading churches, we may infer from 
his statement that he had met many bishops and received 
the same doctrine from them all. The precious Memorabilia 
itself was long ago lost and all we have of its contents are the 
three or four sentences that struck Eusebius as notable enough 
to repeat. 

In the course of these few sentences, Hegesippus speaks first 
of a pleasant sojourn at Corinth and then of his arrival at Rome 
during the episcopate of Anicetus. The phrase which he uses in 
connection with his stay at Rome, if taken in the generally ac- 
cepted sense, indicates that, as a security for the genuineness of 
the Roman tradition, he compiled a list of the Roman bishops 
through whom the tradition had been transmitted during the 
hundred years from the apostles Peter and Paul to Anicetus. 
There must still have been old men at Rome who could furnish 
reminiscences reaching back to the time of Clement. The names 
of Linus and Cletus, the two leaders of the community before 
Clement, both perhaps more or less connected with the heroic 
memories of the apostles, would still be treasured as part of 
the church’s heritage. Later, Hegesippus added to his list 
the names of Soter and Eleutherus, who succeeded Anicetus. 
Whether he obtained similar episcopal lists from other churches 
on his tour, our tantalizing sentences do not say nor do they 
include the Roman list itself. We gather, however, from our 
other sources that a catalogue of the first Roman bishops was 
early in circulation and generally regarded as a sanction for the 
validity of Roman doctrine and practice.** Hegesippus’ record 
may have been used as the basis for the list of Roman bishops 
drawn up by the Syrian Epiphanius in the fourth century, which 
opened as follows: Peter and Paul, Linus, Cletus, Clement, 
Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius and 
Anicetus. During the bishopric of Eleutherus, Irenaeus of Gaul 


82 Trenaeus and Tertullian, vide infra, pp. 267, 293. 


250 THE SEE OF PETER 


also made out a line of the Roman bishops to his own day but 
his record differed in one particular from that preserved by Epi- 
phanius. The form of the name of Linus’ successor was given as 
Anacletus instead of as the shorter Cletus. In the middle of the 
fourth century, the author of the expanded Liberian Catalogue 
of the popes, comparing these two primitive lists, mistook the 
different forms of the same name for two names and put both 
Cletus and Anacletus into his chronology.* 


On Hegesippus and his papal catalogue see: J. B. Lightfoot, The Apos- 
tolic Fathers, Pt. I, Vol. I, p. 201; Th. Zahn, Der griechische Irenaeus und 
der ganze Hegesippus im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Theologische Literatur- 
blatt (Leipzig, 1893), Vols. XIV-XV, pp. 495-497; Th. Zahn, Forschungen 
zur Geschichte der neutestamentlichen Kanons (6 vols., Erlangen, 1881— 
1900), VI, pp. 228-273; J. Chapman, La Chronologie des Premiéres Listes 
Episcopales de Rome in Revue Benédictine (Maredsous, 1901), Vol. XVIII, 
PP. 399-417; (1902), Vol. XIX, pp. 13-30, 144-170. 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 22, 1-3. Text. Euse- 
bius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 
der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 368-370. 


After certain statements regarding the letter of Clement 
to the Corinthians he [Hegesippus] continues as follows: 
‘¢ And the church of the Corinthians abode in the right faith 
until Primus was bishop. ‘Their acquaintance I made on 


my voyage to Rome and I stayed with the Corinthians many ~ 


days, while we refreshed one another with the right faith. 
And when I arrived at Rome, I drew up a list of succession 
as far as Anicetus.** Eleutherus was his deacon and after 


33 Infra, pp. 709, 711. 

84 The text of Hegesippus quoted by Eusebius, as we have it, is d:adoxhy 
éxounodunv méxpts *Avixnrov. The word détadoxyv, translated here, “list of suc- 
cession,” is the same as that which is used again two lines later and is translated 
there, “line of succession.” Its use in the former sense of “ list” or “ catalogue ” 
is without precedent elsewhere but the context seems to warrant the interpretation. 
Rufinus, however, translating this passage into Latin at the end of the fifth cen- 
tury, rendered it: “ permansi ibi usque ad Anicetum,” i.e., “I remained there until 
the time of Anicetus,” 7.e., literally, “ I made a stay there.” Evidently a different 
word appeared in his Greek manuscript. Later editors and scholars have in some 
instances followed Rufinus and suggested that the original text read dcarpiBqv or 
dvaywynv instead of d:adoxqv. But Eusebius himself apparently did not under- 


eS a a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 251 


Anicetus, Soter succeeded, and after Soter, Eleutherus. And 
in every line of succession ** and in every city they adhered 
to the ordinances of the law and the prophets and the Lord.” 


SOTER 
(c. 166-c. 174) 


Bishop Soter was also a continuator of Roman tradition, the 
benevolent tradition established in the days of Clement,** as 
one may gather from a letter of acknowledgment written to him 
and to the Roman church by Bishop Dionysius of Corinth.*’ 
All we have of this letter are the few sentences quoted by Euse- 
bius but fortunately these are informative. They speak appre- 
ciatively not only of the customary charity of the Romans but 
also of Soter’s own part in enlarging this bounty and of his 
graciousness to visiting brethren at Rome, like that of a loving 
father to his children. Soter had, moreover, written a pastoral 
letter to the Corinthians, which had just been read aloud in their 
church and would be preserved to be read again in the future, 
as had been done with the letter from Clement. 

At this point Eusebius halts his quotation and we are left in 
the dark as to the purpose or substance of Soter’s letter to Cor- 
inth. A second-century homily, with neither address nor name 
in the text, was in Eusebius’ time circulated with the well known 
letter of Clement to the Corinthians as a second letter of Clement. 
Eusebius expressed some doubt as to its autheriticity but it con- 
tinued to be coupled in both Greek and Syriac manuscripts with 


stand the passage as Rufinus did, for when speaking of Anicetus in another con- 
nection, he remarks: “In his time, Hegesippus says that he came to Rome and 
remained there until Eleutherus was bishop.” Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 11, 7. 
This is not enough to make one positive that he took the clause to mean what we 
do but it does prove that his reading was not that of Rufinus. For a concise 
summary of the arguments for the divergent interpretations of this important 
passage, see the note by A. C. McGiffert in his translation of Eusebius, A Select 
Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, 
VoL. 1, D. 198, D. 3. 

35 ey é&aoTy 5é dtadoxF. 

86 Vide supra, pp. 216, 235. 

87 For Dionysius of Corinth and another extract from this same letter, supra, 


pp. 75-76. 


252 THE SEE OF PETER 


I Clement. A few years ago Harnack propounded the theory that 
Soter had sent to the Corinthians an old homily of his own or 
of some one else, which had then been laid up in the archives 
at Corinth side by side with the older letter from Clement, also, 
of course, of Roman origin. Dionysius, as we have seen, alludes 
to the two letters together. In the course of time the distinction 
between the authors was forgotten and both were copied as let- 
ters of Clement. Lightfoot and other scholars disagree with this 
proposition and regard the so-called JJ Clement as the work of 
a Corinthian or perhaps an Alexandrian Christian, but on this 
hypothesis they are unable to account for its association with 
I Clement. On the chance that it is the message Soter sent to 
Corinth we give some extracts here.** 


On the so-called JJ Clement see J. V. Bartlet, Clementine Literature 
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed.); A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchrist- 
lichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, Vol. II', pp. 438-450; J. B. Lightfoot, The 
Apostolic Fathers, Pt. II, Vol. II, pp. 191-316; F. X. Funk, Der sogen. zweite 
Clemensbrief, in Theologische Quartalschrift (Minich, 1902), Vol. LXXXIV, 


PP. 349-364. 


Eusebius, 1 istoria Ecclesiastica, IV, 2 3: 9-11. Text. Euse- 
bius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 
der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II", 376. 


23: 9 There is in existence also a letter written by 
Dionysius *’ to the Romans, addressed to Soter, who was 
bishop at the time. We cannot do better than insert some 
extracts from this letter, in which he commends the custom 
of the Romans that they have followed even down to the 
persecution in our own days.*” His words are as follows: 

o “For from the beginning it has been your habit to 
assist all the brotherhood in various ways and to send con- 
tributions to divers churches in every city. Thus you have 


38 Eusebius says also that Soter wrote against the Montanists but tells us noth- 
ing of the occasion nor of what he said. 

39 Dionysius, bishop of Corinth. 

40 T.e., to the fourth century persecution under Diocletian and his successors, 
in Eusebius’ own day. 


eee ee ee le 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 253 


relieved the poverty of the needy and provided for the 
brethren in the mines. By these gifts, which you have sent 
from the beginning, you Romans do preserve the hereditary 
Roman custom and your blessed bishop Soter not only main- 
tains but even enlarges upon it, furnishing abundant sup- 
plies to the saints and encouraging the brethren who come 
from abroad with benignant words as a loving father his 
children.”’ 

11 In this same letter he mentions also the letter of 
Clement to the Corinthians, indicating that it had been the 
practice from the beginning to read it aloud in the church. 
His words are as follows: ‘“‘ Today we have passed the 
Lord’s holy day, in the course of which we have read your 
[Soter’s] letter. From it, whenever we read it, we shall 
always be able to draw instruction, as we do also from the 
earlier letter which was written us by Clement.” 


Ad Corinthios, I, V, XII, XVIII, XIX. Text. The Apos- 
tolic Fathers, ed. by K. Lake (The Loeb Classical Lt- 
brary), I, 128, 134-136, 146-148, 158-160. 


I Brethren, we must think of Jesus Christ as God, as 
judge of quick and dead, and we must not think lightly of 
our salvation. ... 

V Wherefore, brethren, let us leave our sojourning in 
this world and do the will of him who called us and be not 
afraid to depart from this world. For the Lord said: “ Ye 
shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves.” And Peter 
answered and said to him: ‘‘ What if the wolves tear the 
lambs? ” ** Jesus said to Peter: ‘‘ Let not the lambs fear 
the wolves after their death; and do you have no fear of 
them that kill you and can do no more to you, but rather 
fear him who after your death hath power over your soul 


41 The source of this quotation is unknown. It may be the lost Gospel of the 
Egyptians. 


204 | THE SEE OF PETER 


and body to cast them into hell fire.” And know, brethren, 
that the dwelling of our flesh in this world is short and lasts 
but a little time but the promise of Christ is great and 
wonderful and so is the rest in the kingdom which is to 
come and life everlasting. .. . 


XII Let us then wait hourly for the kingdom of God : 


in love and righteousness, since we know not the day of the 
appearing of God. For when the Lord himself was asked 
by a man when his kingdom should come, he said: ‘‘ When 
two shall be one and the outside as the inside and the male 
with the female as neither male nor female.” ** And the 
two are one when we speak truth to one another and there 


is one spirit in two bodies without hypocrisy. And by “ the 


outside as the inside ” he means this: by the inside he means 
the spirit and by the outside the body. So, just as your 
body is visible, let your spirit be apparent in your good 
works. And by “ the male with the female as neither male 
nor female”’ he means this: that when a brother sees a 
sister he should not think of her as female nor she of him 
as male. When you do these things, he says, the kingdom 
of my Father shall come... . 

XVIII Let us also then be of those who give thanks, 
the servants of God, and not of the ungodly who are judged. 
For I myself too am altogether sinful and have not yet 
escaped from temptation but am still beset by the wiles of 
the devil. Nevertheless I strive to follow after righteousness, 
that I may have strength at least to approach it, fearing 
the judgment that is to come. 

XIX Therefore, brethren and sisters, in obedience to 
the God of truth I read you a warning to heed the things 
that are written, that you may save both yourselves and 
him who is reader among you. ‘For in return I ask you 

42 This saying may also have been taken from the Gospel of the Egyptians. 


In its cryptic character it reminds one of the similar saying quoted in the apoc- 
ryphal Acts of Peter. Supra, p. 152. 


eRe an eae ee 


78 - ay hs ha! - 4 = ~ r be” me) s & 
a a ee ee ee TO A a a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 256 


to repent with all your hearts and secure for yourselves 
safety and life. ... Blessed are they who obey these 
commandments; though they suffer pain for a short space 
in this world, they shall reap the deathless fruit of the 
resurrection. 


ELEUTHERUS 


(c. 175-c. 188) 


The Church of the second century was a church in a trying 
stage of development. Weak as yet in numbers, unpopular with 
the pagan public, persecuted intermittently by the State, unpro- 
vided with any uniform canon of authority or system of organi- 
zation, shaken by the rise of parties that interpreted the person- 
ality and intention of Jesus in radically opposite ways, she must 
often have seemed to her leaders on the verge of breaking apart 
into impotent, small groups, doomed speedily to perish altogether. 
Practically all the information we have about the Roman bishops 
of the latter half of the century concerns their relation to one or 
another of these early schisms and the measures that were being 
gradually devised to consolidate the Church against them. 

Eleutherus was confronted by at least two dilemmas, one 
created by the presence of the able Gnostic, Marcion, as a 
wealthy and influential member of his Roman congregation,** 
and the other by the growth of the new puritan Montanist faction 
everywhere.** Marcion, in spite of his generosity to the church, 
was plainly a case for discipline. No body that felt the call to 
consistency and order as the Romans did could tolerate long 
his philosophic vagaries. His money was returned and he was 
expelled from communion, received back on trial and again ex- 
pelled. The Montanists required more consideration. Montanus 
himself and Priscilla and Maximilla, the women who first joined 
him, were Phrygian Christians, who about the middle of the cen- 
tury had begun to have trances and ecstasies and, under divine 
prompting, to utter revelations, — a sort of phenomenon that had 
been common in the first days of the Church, when prophecy and 


43 For more about Marcion and his theories vide infra, pp. 266, n. 65; 270, 272. 
44 On the Montanists see also supra, p. 77, n. 38. 


256 THE SEE OF PETER 

vision had been reckoned among the peculiar gifts of the Spirit. 
Now, however, these unregulated and inspirational preachers and 
revivalists came as troublesome interruptions to the establishment 
of a decorous liturgy. Their insistence on the right and capacity 
of every Christian to receive in his own soul his own message of 
truth directly from God threatened the increasing ascendency of 
the bishops and priests, who could trace their offices back to the 
apostles and by virtue of that fact were claiming to be the only 
reliable mouthpieces of the faith. The Montanists did not agitate 
themselves over cosmic theories, as the Gnostics did, but they 
were much concerned with practical questions of spiritual life and 
morals. In course of time, the Asiatic bishops held a council to 


determine the attitude to be adopted toward these unruly brethren - 


and ended by condemning them and forbidding further outbursts 
of such unauthorized zeal. 

The problem, however, was not finally settled by the action 
in Asia. Sometime, not long afterward, the case of the Mon- 
tanists was carried on to Rome, at first, apparently, by sym- 
pathizers with the movement, who hoped to bring about some 
kind of reconciliation between the parties in Asia through the 
mediation of the Roman bishop, Eleutherus. At least, that 
seems to be the implication of the third sentence in the fol- 
lowing extract from Tertullian’s polemic Against Praxeas.* 
Tertullian himself had become a Montanist by the time he wrote 
this and is indignantly recalling the fact that after Eleutherus 
had expressed his confidence in Montanus and his gifts and 
had set about using his influence to persuade the Asiatics to 


readmit him to communion, the conservative Praxeas had come . 


to Rome and talked Eleutherus into reconsidering his opinion by 
laying particular stress upon the necessity of loyalty in every 
respect to the Roman tradition and the danger of countenancing 
strange inspirations. According to Tertullian, it was the memory 
of his predecessors, the bishops before him, that finally decided 
Eleutherus. He could not, after all, support any movement that 
set up novel standards of authority to supersede them. We our- 
selves know that Eleutherus had been deacon under Anicetus, 


45 For Tertullian vide. supra, p. 84; infra, p. 286. 


a ee ea eS eee - 


ee ee Ot ee ee Se Le ee 


Se ed el” en ee, 4 


4 
: 
a 
q 
j 
4 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 257 


who had refused to modify Roman tradition in a comparatively 
small matter, even for Polycarp.*® 

In addition to Tertullian’s bitter resumé of this incident, we 
have an allusion to it, from the opposite point of view, in Euse- 
bius. He mentions it casually in connection with his account of 
the persecution of the churches of Lyons and Vienne under 
Marcus Aurelius, in 177. He had before him, when he wrote, 
a series of letters sent out by these churches in Gaul, several of 
them being addressed to the churches in Asia and Phrygia and 
one to Eleutherus, bishop of Rome. The letters to Asia are long 
and detailed and seem to presuppose close, personal ties of friend- 
ship between members of the Gallic and Asiatic communities. 
It is likely that other young men had emigrated from the thickly 
populated cities of Asia Minor, as Irenaeus had done,*’ to seek 
their fortunes along the valley of the Rhone. The letter in which 
Eusebius takes most interest and which he quotes at length is 
one describing the events of the Gallic persecution and the hard- 
ships endured by the martyrs, who were confined for a long while 
in prison before their execution. He adds that he has also 
copies of letters discussing the Montanist problem, one written in 
the name of the church as a whole, others in that of the impris- 
oned martyrs. Obviously the Asiatic churches had sent to Gaul 
a report of their troubles with Montanus and his followers and 
their correspondents had replied with expressions of sympathy 
and approval of the stand which the Asiatics had taken. More 
than this, the prisoners of Lyons had determined to go farther 
and, as a body of men about to suffer for the faith, to bring what 
pressure they could to bear upon the bishop of Rome to induce 
him to take their view of the situation.** 

Salmon, indeed, understands from the passage “that the 
Montanists had appealed to Rome, that the church party (in 
Asia) solicited the good offices of their countrymen settled in 
Gaul, who wrote to Eleutherus representing the disturbance of 
the peace of the churches (a phrase probably preserved by Euse- 
bius from the letter itself) which would ensue if the Roman 

46 Supra, pp. 247, 250. 


47 On Irenaeus vide supra, p. 76; infra, p. 261. pat 
48 For another instance of the display of authority by martyrs vide infra, 


Pp. 332 and n. 107, 339, 340, 345. 


258 THE SEE OF PETER 


church should approve what the church on the spot con- 
demned.” *° Both Tertullian and the Gallic Christians desired 
“‘the peace of the churches,” though their ideas as to how that 
peace might be attained were diametrically opposed. 

Irenaeus, now an ordained priest at Lyons, was actually sent 
to Rome as spokesman for the martyrs. Eusebius gives us the 
opening phrases of the letter of introduction which he carried 
with him. Clearly much hope was staked upon his eloquence to 
bring Eleutherus around to the right attitude, but how far 
he really contributed to Eleutherus’ final decision we do not 
know. ‘Tertullian puts all the blame upon Praxeas but he may 
have had special reasons for doing so. On the other hand, 
Irenaeus may not have reached Rome until after the question 


was settled. His satisfaction at the outcome and the impression 


which the attendant circumstances made upon him may be in- 


ferred from some portions of his great work, Agaimst Heresies, . 


which he wrote during his stay at this time in Rome.” 


See on this affair J. Langen, Geschichte der romischen Kirche (4 vols., 
Bonn, 1881-1893), Vol. I, pp. 179 sgq.; G. N. Bonwetsch, Die Geschichte 
der Montanismus (Berlin, 1881); Th. Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des 
neutestamentlichen Kanons (2 vols., Erlangen, 1881-1893), V, 1 sqq.; P. 
de Labriolle, Les Sources de Histoire du Montanisme; La Crise Montaniste 
(Paris, 1913). 


Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, c. 30. Text. 
Ed. by P. de Labriolle, Textes et Documents pour 
VEtude Historique du Christianisme, IV, 62. 


30 Where then [during the apostolic age] was Marcion, 
the ship’s pilot from Pontus, the devotee of Stoicism? 
Where was Valentinus,” the disciple of Platonism? Every- 
one knows that they were not of that ancient time but lived 
in recent days, during the reign of Antoninus. And they 

49 G, Salmon, Montanus, in Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. III. 

50 Extracts from this work are given on pp. 265-272. Book III, at least, must 
have been finished before Eleutherus’ death, for the list of the bishops of Rome 


closes with his name. 
51 Valentinus was really of an older generation than Marcion. 


4 
| 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 259 


first accepted the catholic doctrine in the church at Rome, 
during the bishopric of the blessed Eleutherus,” until on ac- 
count of their continual restless speculations, with which 
they were also corrupting the brethren, they were twice 
expelled, Marcion with the 200,000 sesterces which he had 
presented to the church. Then, condemned to perpetual 
separation, they spread far and wide their poisonous teach- 
ings. But afterwards Marcion confessed his repentance and 
submitted to the condition imposed upon him for obtaining 
peace, namely, that he should restore to the church those 
persons whom he had led to perdition by his teaching, but 
death too soon overtook him. 


Tertullian, Adversus Praxeam,1. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, XLVII, 227-228. 


He [Praxeas] came from Asia and was the first to im- 
port this kind of perversity into Roman soil. He was a 
turbulent man in various ways, especially conceited over 
his boasted martyrdom, because he had suffered one simple, 
short confinement in prison, although, even if he had given 
his body to be burned, it would have profited him nothing, 
since he had not the love of God and repudiated his gifts.” 
For after the bishop of Rome” had admitted the genuine- 
ness of the prophecies of Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla 
and through his acknowledgment had brought peace to the 
churches of Asia and Phrygia, he |Praxeas| by importu- 

52 Tertullian is employing here the argument formulated before him by 
Irenaeus, that the orthodox teaching of the Church can be traced directly back 
to the apostles and is therefore older and more authentic than heresies whose 
origin was comparatively modern. Infra, pp. 266, 272. 

53 Charismata. This is the name given by Paul to the “ gifts of the Spirit,” 
prophesying, speaking with tongues, etc., characteristic of the apostolic Church. 

54 Tertullian does not mention the name of the Roman bishop of whom he is 
speaking. Some scholars have taken it to be Victor. See C. Mirbt, Quellen zur 
Geschichte des Papsttums (4th ed.), p. 16, and references given there. We are 
following the opinion of P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (2 vols. 


Leipzig, 1885-1888), Vol. I, p. 10, and H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History, 
Vol. II, pp. 187, 221. It is impossible to be quite positive. 


260 THE SEE OF PETER 


nately urging false charges against those prophets and their 
churches and insisting upon the authority that belonged to 


the bishop’s predecessors in the see forced him to recall the 


conciliatory letter which he had sent out and also to desist 
from his purpose of accepting those gifts. So Praxeas 
accomplished two works of the devil at Rome: he shut out 
prophecy and brought in heresy, put to flight the Holy 
Spirit and crucified the Father.” 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 3, 4; 4, 1-2. Text. 
Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrift- 
steller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 432-434. 


The followers of Montanus, Alcibiades and Theodotus,”* 
now began promulgating widely in Phrygia their views on 
prophecy, and numerous miracles also were at this time by 
the grace of God taking place in different churches, causing 
many people to believe in their prophesying. So dissensions 
arose about these manifestations. The brethren in Gaul 
promptly expressed their own pious and orthodox judgment 
in the matter and dispatched also several letters from the 
martyrs who had been slain among them, which they had 
written, while still in prison, to the brethren in Asia and 
Phrygia and also to Eleutherus, at that time the bishop of 
Rome, to plead for the peace of the churches. 

The same martyrs also recommended Irenaeus, who was 
then a priest of the parish of Lyons, to the said bishop of 
Rome, testifying highly of him, as the following words show: 
“We pray, father Eleutherus, for your rejoicing in God 
again and always. We have committed this letter to our 
brother and comrade Irenaeus to carry to you and we com- 


°5 Praxeas belonged to the Monarchian or Patripassian party in the Church, 
that denied any distinction in person between Christ and God, and taught that the 
Father himself had endured birth, suffering and death in the flesh. At the beginning 
of the third century, the Roman bishops Zephyrinus and Callistus were Mon- 
archians. Infra, pp. 304, 309. 

56 On Theodotus vide infra, p. 279. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 261 


mend him to your esteem as a zealous adherent of the 
covenant of Christ.” ” 


TRENAEUS 
(c. 130-Cc. 200) 


We have mentioned already more than once the name of 
Irenaeus,* a son of Asia Minor, who emigrated soon after the 
middle of the second century by way of Italy to Lyons on the 
Rhone and there became prominent as a priest in the local 
church and, in his latter years, its bishop. As a youth he lived 
in or near the Christian community at Smyrna and listened to 
Bishop Polycarp, who remembered the apostle John. “TI re- 
call.” °° he wrote in 180, “‘ the events of that time more clearly 
than those of recent years. For what we observe in boyhood 
grows into the mind and becomes part of it. Thus I can de- 
scribe the exact spot where the blessed Polycarp sat when he 
talked and his goings and comings and habits of life and physi- 
cal appearance and discourses to the people and the accounts he 
gave of his conversations with John and the others who had seen 
the Lord. And as Polycarp repeated their words and what he 
had heard from them about the Lord and his miracles, having 
received it all from eyewitnesses of the Word of Life, everything 
that he related was in harmony with the Scriptures. And while 
he told us all this, by the mercy of God [I listened to it intently 
and noted it down not on paper but in my heart.” 

Thus as a lad Irenaeus learned reverence and loyalty to the 
tradition of the apostles from the lips of one who had it at first 
hand. Whether he was still in Rome when Polycarp came to 
confer with Anicetus,*° we do not know. At any rate he heard 
of that visit and was impressed by the fact that Polycarp had 
met there a tradition derived from other apostles than John, 
which in some minor points was at variance with his but which 
accorded with it on the fundamentals of the faith. 

57 Eusebius pursues the subject no further but passes immediately to another. 

58 See particularly supra, p. 76. 


- 59 Fragment quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 20, 4-7. 
60 Supra, Pp. 247. 


262 THE SEE OF PETER 


As the years passed and the last of the older generation dis- 
appeared and new men of different antecedents and training 
proceeded to put their explanations and estimates upon the 
Christian faith, the question of what must still be accepted 
unchanged as the essential historic facts and what beside as the 
legitimate interpretation of them became, as we have said, con- 
tinually more pressing and difficult. Justin Martyr, Dionysius 
of Corinth and others wrote against what seemed to them per- 
verted misrepresentations of the gospel story. Hegesippus made 
his pilgrimage to collect authentic reminiscences of the apostles.* 
To Irenaeus, bred as he had been in the line of a direct, simple, 
oral tradition, all the labored, fanciful philosophies that now 
passed as higher developments of Christian teaching seemed 
utterly repugnant and alien to the spirit of Jesus and his disciples. 
The mystic Montanist party from Asia Minor was almost equally 
distasteful. The trend toward unbridled ratiocination must be 
withstood, of course, but not by wayward ascetics, falling into 
trances and setting up new revelations and communions. Error 
could be exposed only by getting back to the first, clear sources 
of truth, which were to Irenaeus the words of the Lord and his 
appointed messengers. In 177, the report of the Montanist dis- 
turbance in Asia reached the church at Lyons, and Irenaeus, as 
a priest in the church, was dispatched to Rome to lay the views 
of himself and his fellow-members before Eleutherus and save 
him from being deluded by the Montanist prophets.” 

Eleutherus may have wavered for a while but in the end he 
seems to have realized that his duty lay in following the example 
of Anicetus, resisting the spirit of innovation and adhering stead- 
fastly to the tradition that was the heritage of his church. To 
the Asiatics who had condemned the Montanists he sent the ap- 
proval of Rome. Irenaeus, who saw in the temptation to “ de- 
spise the companions of the Lord ” the supreme peril of the age 
and who took pride in his earnest Gallic converts, prevented by 
their ignorance from knowing either the Greek Scriptures or 
the newfangled heresies, felt the reassurance of this conservative 
and powerful support. | 


61 Supra, pp. 248, 250. 62 Supra, p. 260. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 263 


During the remaining years of Eleutherus’ pontificate, 
Irenaeus spent much time at Rome, whether in any ecclesiastical 
capacity or not we do not know. He used the opportunity for 
study and writing to grapple seriously with the menace of heresy 
and to lay down for the use of the Church certain broad prin- 
ciples by which it might henceforth be tested and resisted. 
Other writers had disproved particular errors, point by point. 
Irenaeus’ book was directed especially against the Gnostic schools 
of Valentinus and of Marcion, the latter of whom had been 
freshly excommunicated. He patiently described their doctrines 
in order fairly to refute them, but his method of refutation was 
general and applicable to any pernicious novelty. What, after 
all, had the disciples of John or Peter or Paul to do with aeons 
or the demiurge? Had Christ taught dualism or distinguished 
between the inferior creator god and his own spiritual Father? 
Christianity was the doctrine of the Lord and of his apostles, un- 
contaminated by spurious, later inventions. 

As to what was genuine doctrine, the Church possessed two 
authentic sources of knowledge, the four gospels and the tradition 
bequeathed by the apostles to their successors. Irenaeus de- 
scribes briefly the origin of the gospels, using information drawn 
largely from Papias. Then for those who object that the gospels 
are incomplete and demand interpretation and supplement he 
adds that the apostles left their own interpretations and instruc- 
tions with the men whom they appointed bishops of the churches 
which they had founded and he challenges the Gnostics to show 
any such authority for their theories or any break in the Christian 
line of inheritance. Every apostolic church, he says, has its own 
legacy of tradition, handed on, since its first reception, as a sacred 
charge from bishop to bishop. It would take too long to trace 
back the episcopal genealogy in every case. Let one suffice as an 
example, to wit, that of the ‘‘ very great and ancient and illus- 
trious church founded and organized at Rome by the two glorious 
apostles Peter and Paul.”’ This church because of its command- 
ing position at Rome is necessarily visited by everyone and the 
tradition which it derives from the apostles is confirmed by every- 
one who comes to it. Did Irenaeus have Polycarp in mind, as 


264 THE SEE OF PETER 


he wrote this passage? One is tempted to think it in view of his 
references further on to Polycarp’s preaching against the Roman 
Gnostics. He goes on to give a list of Roman bishops ® from 
Peter down to Eleutherus and a summary of the baptismal creed 
in use at Roman services. 

From Rome he passes to Asia and cites the testimony of 
Polycarp, his own closest link with the apostolic age, who had 
abhorred heretics and had always taught the same faith in one 
God, Creator and’ Father, and one Son of God, who lived and 
suffered in the flesh. But his reliance upon Polycarp is appar- 
ently no greater than his reliance upon Rome. He has added to 
his allegiance to the revered teacher of his youth another alle- 
giance, to the church whose weighty influence has been cast also 
on the side of staunch fidelity to the past. He writes in Greek 
and he knows that his book will be read in the East. He in- 
tends, possibly, to remind his readers, orthodox as well as Gnos- 
tic, that the church of the great metropolis has not only wealth 
and numbers but also a faith, founded upon a continuous tradi- 
tion, that no one can despise, not even those who live nearer to 
the birthplace of their religion. Polycarp himself once preached 
at Rome and helped to confirm that faith. Rome is the cham- 
pion of all Christians against those who pervert or belittle the 
apostles’ message. Let them recognize her trustworthiness! 
Let them accept as a test of orthodox belief its harmony either 
with the written gospel or with the oral tradition preserved in 
such a church! One feels, of course, that to Irenaeus the real 
desideratum was loyalty to apostolic Christianity and that he 
had become a partisan of Rome because her record in regard to 
that special virtue stood so clear. If Eleutherus had compro- 
mised with Marcion or decided differently in the matter of the 
Montanists, Irenaeus would hardly have selected his church as 
a standard by which to try heretics. How the eastern brethren 
received his argument at the time we have no means of telling. 
The next step in the development of Roman ecclesiastical leader- 
ship, taken by Bishop Victor, the successor of Eleutherus, 
brought out an urgent protest, even from Irenaeus. 


63 For a comparison of Irenaeus’ list with one which perhaps represents the 
list drawn up by Hegesippus vide supra, pp. 249-250. 


ate a a ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 265 
The Greek text of Irenaeus’ work against. heresy was lost 
during the period of neglect that fell upon second century writers. 
We possess the original of only a portion of the first book and 
some disconnected passages quoted by Hippolytus or Eusebius. 
The substance, however, of the whole has been preserved in a 
rude, literal, Latin translation, used by Tertullian and, therefore, 
almost as old as the original itself. 


Contra Haereses, III, 1-4. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Graeca, VII, 844-857. | 


1 Now we have learned the plan of our salvation en- 
tirely from the men through whom the gospel came to us. 
For at first they proclaimed it abroad and afterwards, by 
the will of God, they set it down for us in the Scriptures to be 
the foundation and pillar of our faith. It is wicked to say, 
as some venture to do, who boast that they improve upon 
the apostles, that the latter preached before they had at- 
tained to “ perfect knowledge.” “ For after our Lord arose 
from the dead and they were filled with the power of the 
Holy Ghost descending from on high, they were complete 
every whit and had perfect knowledge; they went forth to 
the ends of the earth, bearing the glad tidings of the good 
things bestowed by God upon us and declaring the peace of 
heaven to men, each one equally and individually possess- 
ing the gospel of God. So Matthew among the Hebrews 
issued a gospel written in their language, while Peter and 
Paul were preaching at Rome and establishing the church. 
And after their death, Mark, the disciple and interpreter 
of Peter, himself wrote down the teachings of Peter and 
bequeathed them to us. Luke also, the follower of Paul, 
recorded in a book the gospel he had preached. Finally, 


64 A reference to those Gnostics who taught that Christianity, like the reli- 
gions of the pagan mysteries, had its esoteric philosophy, not comprehended even 
by all the apostles. Marcion, for example, repudiated all the books of the New 
Testament except a modified form of the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of Paul. 


266 THE SEE OF PETER 


John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon 
his breast, did himself publish his gospel during his sojourn 
at Ephesus in Asia. 

These have all made plain to us that there is one God, 
the Creator of heaven and earth, proclaimed by the law and 
the prophets, and one Christ, the Son of God.* Whoever 
does not accept this, despises the companions of the Lord; 
despises also Christ himself, the Lord; yea, he despises the 
Father also and stands self-condemned, resisting and oppos- 
ing his own salvation, as do all the heretics. 

2 But when these people are refuted out of the Scrip- 
tures, they turn and accuse the Scriptures themselves, on 


the ground that they are mistaken or not authoritative or 


not consistent in their wording, and they say that the truth 
cannot be learned from them by persons who do not know 
the tradition, for that was not transmitted in writing but 
by word of mouth. ... 

Then when we challenge them again with the tradition 
which comes from the apostles and is preserved in the 
churches by the presbyters in their successions, they attack 
the tradition and insist that they are wiser not only than 
the presbyters but even than the apostles and that they have 
discovered the unalloyed truth... . 

3 Now it is within the power of anyone, who cares, to 
find out the truth and to know the tradition of the apostles, 
professed throughout the world in every church. We are 
also able to name those who were appointed bishops by the 
apostles in the churches and their successors down to our 
own times. They neither taught nor knew of any such thing 


65 Cerdon and his pupil Marcion explained the conflict between the moral 
standards of the Old and New Testaments by declaring that the God of creation 
and of the Old Testament was a cruel demiurge, a different being from the merciful 
Father of Jesus, and that Jesus himself, the Son of God, was not to be identified 
with the Messiah whom the prophets had predicted. In short, they aimed to 
eradicate all national, Jewish elements from Christianity in order to free it from 
the accompanying taints and limitations. Marcion, however, did not feel that his 
position was incompatible with remaining in the Church and left it only under 
compulsion. A. Harnack, History of Dogma, trans. by N. Buchanan, Vol. I, 
chap. V; also Marcion; das Evangelium von fremden Gott (Leipzig, 1921). 


ea, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 267 


as these hallucinations. Yet, if the apostles had been aware 
of any hidden mysteries, which were disclosed to “ the per- 
fect ” ® apart and secretly from the rest, they would have 
delivered them first of all to the men to whom they com- 
mitted the churches.*’ For they desired above all that these 
men should be perfect and blameless in everything, since 
they were leaving them behind as their successors and en- 
trusting their own office of government to them, so that if 
they walked uprightly, it would be of great benefit, and if 
they fell away, a dire calamity. 

But inasmuch as it would be very tedious in a book such 
as this to rehearse the lines of succession in every church, 
we will put to confusion all persons who, whether from way- 
wardness or vainglory or blindness or perversity of mind, 
combine wrongfully together in any way, by pointing to the 
tradition, derived from the apostles, of that great and 
illustrious church founded and organized at Rome by the 
two glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, and to the faith 
declared to mankind and handed down to our own time 
through its bishops in their succession. For unto this 
church, on account of its commanding position, every church, 
that is to say, the faithful from everywhere, must needs 
resort and in it the tradition that comes from the apostles 
has been continuously preserved by those who are from 
everywhere.” 

66 A phrase applied in the mysteries to the inner circle of initiates. 

67 In another place, Irenaeus says: ‘‘ They [the heretics] all are much later 
than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the churches.” V, 20, 1. 

68 The Greek of this all important passage is lost. The Latin version runs: 
“ Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem [or potiorem] principalitatem necesse 
est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper 
ab his qui sunt undique conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio.” The 
translation ordinarily adopted hitherto by Catholic scholars, e.g., Tillemont, Bos- 
suet, Rivington, etc., is: “ With this church, on account of its preéminent authority, 
every church must be in agreement, that is, the faithful everywhere, among whom 
the tradition of the apostles has been continuously preserved by those everywhere.” 
The antecedent of “qua” is here “omnem ecclesiam.’”’ Harnack gives substan- 
tially the same interpretation. History of Dogma, trans. by N. Buchanan, Vol. I, 
p. 157, n. 3. Bardenhewer, however, understands “ qua” to refer to “ hanc ec- 


clesiam,” as we do, and reads also into the preposition “in” the meaning, “ in 
communion with.” Patrology, p. 121. Everything really hangs upon the rendering 


268 THE SEE OF PETER 


The blessed apostles then founded and reared up this 
church and afterwards committed unto Linus the office of 
the episcopate. This same Linus is mentioned by Paul in 
his epistles to Timothy.” His successor was Anacletus, 
after whom, in the third place from the apostles, Clement 
was elected to the bishopric. He was one who had seen 
the blessed apostles and had intercourse with them, in whose 
ears the apostles’ preaching still lingered and who kept their 
instructions before his eyes. Nor was he unique in this 
regard, for many were still living in his time who had been 
taught by the apostles. In the days of this Clement,” a 
grave dissension arose among the brethren at Corinth and 
the church at Rome sent a compelling letter to the Corin- 
thians, urging them to peace, refreshing their faith and 
repeating the tradition which they had so recently received 
from the apostles, of the one God Almighty, Maker of 
heaven and earth, Creator of mankind, who ordained the 
deluge, called forth Abraham, led his people from the land 
of Egypt, spake with Moses, proclaimed the law, sent out 
the prophets and has prepared fire for the devil and his 
angels. From this letter whoever chooses may see that this 
God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is preached 
by the churches, and may comprehend the apostolic tradi- 
tion of the Church, for this letter is older than the men who 


of “ convenire ad,” as to whether the sentence means that every church, through its 
members who are obliged to visit the capital, has relations with the Roman church 
and so helps to support its faith, or that every church which has an orthodox 
tradition must agree with the Roman See. The word “ principalitas ” is also am- 
biguous and may contain an allusion to age as well as to dignity of situation. If 
the Greek original were ever recovered, the obscurity would probably be cleared up. 
For detailed arguments see L. Rivington, The Primitive Church and the See of 
Peter, passim; F. W. Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, Lect. I 
and Appendix; W. Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church (London, 1896), 
pp. 29-36; J. Langen, Geschichte der romischen Kirche, Vol. I, p. 171; F. R. M. 
Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum, pp. 251-255. 

69 II Timothy, IV, 21. . 

70 On Clement of Rome vide supra, pp. 66, 235. His letter does in fact bring 
out the very point that Irenaeus is trying to establish against the Marcionites, viz., 
the belief of Christians from the first in the identity of the God of the Old Testa- 
ment and of the New. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 269 


now disseminate falsehood and erroneously insist upon a 
second God, superior to the demiurge and maker of all 
things that are. 

To this Clement succeeded Evaristus and Evaristus was 
followed by Alexander. Then, sixth after the apostles, 
Sixtus held office; after him Telesphorus, who was a glorious 
martyr; next Hyginus,” then Pius, and after Pius, Anicetus. 
Soter succeeded Anicetus and now, in the twelfth place from 
the apostles, Eleutherus has the office of the episcopate. 
In this order and by this succession” the tradition of the 
apostles in the Church and the preaching of the truth have 
passed down to us. And herein is abundant proof that the 
lifegiving faith is one and the same which has been pre- 
served in the Church from the apostles until now and handed 
on in truth. 

Likewise Polycarp not only received his training from 
the apostles and conversed with many who had seen Christ 
but was appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna by the 
apostles in Asia. We ourselves saw him in our early youth, 
for he tarried on earth a long while and when a very old man 
gloriously and nobly suffered martyrdom and departed this 
life.“ He taught always the things which he had learned 
from the apostles and which the Church is handing down 
and which alone are true. To this all the churches in Asia 
bear testimony, as do also those men who until now have 
succeeded Polycarp, a far more trustworthy and steadfast 
witness to the truth than Valentinus or Marcion or the other 
heretics. Polycarp was also at Rome in the time of Anicetus 


71 The word “ martyr” at this early date means witness for the faith under 
persecution but not necessarily one who suffered death. 

72 A little later Irenaeus speaks of Hyginus as the ninth bishop. Infra, p. 272. 
He may then have been counting the apostles as the first heads of the church, 
though he nowhere calls one a bishop. 

73 §vadox7. It is the word used by Hegesippus. Supra, p. 250, n. 34. We have 
the Greek of this paragraph. 

74 Polycarp was burned as a martyr at Smyrna about 150 av. His death is 
described in a letter written by the church of Smyrna soon after the event and 
quoted by Eusebius. Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 15. He was then at least eighty- 
six years old. | 


270 THE SEE OF PETER 


and converted many from the aforesaid heresies to the 
Church of God by declaring that there was but one and only 
truth, which he had received from the apostles, namely, that 
which is handed down by the Church. There are some who 
heard him tell how John, the disciple of the Lord, on his 
way to the bath at Ephesus saw Cerinthus™ in the bath- 
house and rushed out without washing, exclaiming: ‘‘ Let 
us fly or the bath-house may fall upon us, for Cerinthus, 
the enemy of the truth, is within! ” “* And Polycarp him- 
self, when Marcion once came into his presence and asked: 
“Do you know me? ” replied: ‘‘ I know you, the first-born 
of Satan!” Such was the dread felt by the apostles and 
their disciples of holding even verbal communication with 
the corrupters of the truth; as Paul also said: “‘ A man that 
is an heretic after a first and second admonition reject; 
knowing that such a one is perverted and a sinner, being 
condemned of himself.” We have likewise an able letter 
written by Polycarp to the Philippians,” from which those 
who choose and are concerned for their own salvation may 
gather the nature of his faith and his statement of the truth. 
Furthermore the church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, where 
John dwelt until the time of Trajan, is another true witness 
of the apostles’ tradition. 

4 Seeing, therefore, that we have such testimony, we 
do not need to seek elsewhere the truth which it is easy to 
find in the Church. For the apostles, like a rich man at a 


75 Cerinthus, Menander and Simon, mentioned on this and the following pages, 
were all prominent members of sects which the primitive Church pronounced hereti- 
cal. Almost nothing has been preserved of their literature and we are dependent 
for any knowledge of them upon the denunciations of their heated opponents. See 
on the subject F. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity (2 vols., Cam- 
bridge, 1915). 

76 It is impossible to decide upon the authenticity of this story, which 
Irenaeus did not himself hear from Polycarp. Cerinthus was a contemporary of 
the author of the Gospel of John, which, according to Irenaeus, was composed on 
purpose to refute him. Readers of Browning will remember Cerinthus in The 
Death in the Desert. 

77 Titus, III, 10, rr. 

%8 This letter, which was written soon after the death of Ignatius of Antioch, 
is the only one of Polycarp’s writings that has survived. The text is given by 
Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. II, Vol. III, pp. 321-350. 


ae 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 271 


bank, deposited lavishly with her all aspects of the truth, so 
that everyone, whoever will, may draw from her the water 
of life. For she is the door to life and all others are thieves 
and robbers. For this reason we ought to shun them and 
love the things of the Church with utmost diligence and lay 
hold of the tradition of the truth. What more? Suppose 
that a disagreement on some important question arises 
among us, must we not then have recourse to the most 
ancient churches, with whom the apostles lived, and ascer- 
tain from them what is positive and clear in regard to the 
question in dispute? What if the apostles had left us no 
Scriptures, would it not then be required of us to follow the 
course of the tradition which they bequeathed to the men 
to whom they committed the churches? 

This course is followed by the barbarian peoples who 
believe in Christ and have salvation written in their hearts 
by the Spirit without paper or ink and who guard carefully 
the ancient tradition.” For they believe in one God,” the 
Creator of heaven and earth and all things therein through 
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who for his surpassing love 
toward his creation underwent birth from a virgin, uniting 
man through himself to God, and who suffered under Pontius 
Pilate and rose again and was received up in splendor and 
shall come in glory, the Savior of those who are saved and 
the Judge of those who are judged, to send into eternal fire 
those who pervert the truth and despise his Father and his 
coming. They who without written books have believed 
this faith are barbarians as regards language, but as regards 
doctrine, practice and way of life they are wise indeed 


79 F.g., the Gallic provincials, among whom Irenaeus lived. 

80 The ensuing passage is probably a summary of the creed taught in Irenaeus’ 
day to catechumens before their baptism. Its similarity to the first part of the so- 
called Apostles’ Creed, known to have been in use at Rome in the second century, 
is striking. On the Roman statement of faith as the archetype of all later creeds, 
both eastern and western, vide F. Kaltenbusch, Das Apostolische Symbol or vols., 
1894-1900); A. C. McGiffert, The Apostles’ Creed (New York, 1902) ; 

Bishop, The Eastern Creeds and the Old Roman Symbol in American oe of 
Theology (Chicago, 1902), pp. 518-528; B. 4 Kidd, A History of the Church to 
A.D. 461 (3 vols., Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. I, pp. 259-268. 


a72 | THE SEE OF PETER 

through their faith and do please God, abiding in all 
righteousness, purity and wisdom. If anyone should preach 
to them the fabrications of the heretics in their own tongue, 
they would instantly stop their ears and flee away as far 
as possible, refusing even to hear the blasphemous words. 
Thus they keep the ancient tradition from the apostles and 
do not allow their minds to conceive any such monstrous 
ideas as those of these teachers, among whom neither church 
nor doctrine has ever yet become established. 

_ Now before the time of Valentinus there were no disciples 
of Valentinus, nor did the disciples of Marcion exist before 
Marcion, nor, in short, did any other of those malignant 
persons whom I have just named live before the founders 
and inventors of their errors. Valentinus came to Rome 
in the days of Hyginus, was active under Pius and lived on 
there until Anicetus. As for Cerdon, Marcion’s predecessor, 
he came into the church and made public confession in the 
time of Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop.** And so he 
continued, at one time secretly teaching and then again 
making confession, then being denounced for wrong doc- 
trine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren. 
Marcion, who came after him, was most active under Anice- 
tus, who was the tenth bishop. The others who are called 
Gnostics had their origin in Menander, the disciple of Simon, 
as I have shown, although each of them appeared to be both 
father and high priest of the doctrine into which he was 
initiated. All of them broke out into apostasy very late, 
that is, during the intermediate period * of the Church. 


81 “ Kighth ” in the old Latin version, but Eusebius, who has preserved this 
extract in the Greek, gives “ninth.” Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 11. Elsewhere 
Irenaeus himself makes Hyginus the eighth bishop. Supra, p. 269. The difference, 
as we have said, may be due to the fact that the list of bishops sometimes com- 
menced with Peter and sometimes with Linus. 

82 To Irenaeus this was the period after the apostolic age, extending through 
the middle of the second century. The times in which he was writing were “ late.” 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 278 


CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 


(c. I9gO0-C. 215) 


The following sentences from the Hypotyposes of Clement 
of Alexandria,** if read in connection with the passage from his 
Stromata already quoted,** will show how the search for a canon 
of apostolic authority was going on all over Christendom. 
Clement furnishes a salutary corrective for those of us who 
might feel after reading Hegesippus and Irenaeus that all roads 
in that search inevitably brought one to Rome. He was a greater 
scholar and a subtler thinker than either of the other two. He 
travelled widely and visited southern Italy in his journeys but 
he felt evidently no impulse to consult the Roman oracles and 
remained always outside the Roman orbit. The fragments of 
his writings that we have prove the existence of a number of 
centers of tradition, especially toward the Southeast, individuals 
or groups of individuals, that preserved each its own hoard of 
memories reaching back to apostolic days and lived by them, 
looking for no other leadership or sanction. 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclestastica, II, 1, 3-4. Text. Eusebius 
Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 104. 


3 Clement, in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes, writes 
as follows: “ For Peter *” and James and John, even though 
they had been highly preferred by the Savior, did not con- 
tend with one another for honor but chose James the Just 
bishop of Jerusalem.” 

4 And the same writer in the seventh book of the same 
work tells us this besides about him | James]: ‘‘ The Lord 
after his resurrection imparted knowledge to James the Just 

88 On Clement of Alexandria vide supra, p. 78. 

84 Supra, p. 79. 


85 Peter, to Clement, was merely one of the two or three principal apostles, a 
member of the small inner circle mentioned in the gospels. 


274 THE SEE OF PETER 


and to John and Peter,** and they imparted it to the other 
apostles and the other apostles to the Seventy, of whom 
Barnabas was one.” 


3. THE AUTHORITY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 


VICTOR 
(c. 188-c. 198) 


Victor,*” who succeeded Eleutherus, required no urging to 
take a firm stand against heretics and nonconformists. He was 
the first man, as far as our knowledge goes, to be pope in any- 
thing resembling the modern sense of the term and to regard 
his position as not only one of councillor and benefactor to the 
sister churches but also, if need arose, of commander. His pon- 
tificate, in fact, marks the passing of the primitive, unostenta- 
tious stage in the history of the Roman See and the opening of 
a new and infinitely more ambitious era. 

We know several facts about the militant Victor. The first 
illustrates his policy toward heterodoxy of opinion in the local 
church and is given in an anonymous Roman pamphlet of the 
early third century, quoted by Eusebius. This pamphlet was 
aimed against an heretical party which found sanction for its 
views in certain passages of the New Testament and in a work as 
early and as reputable as The Shepherd of Hermas.** The party 
was known later as the Adoptionist. It held the belief that 
Christ was after all not a god but a man like other men, though 
qualified peculiarly by divine grace to perform his lofty mission 
for the world. In the time of Hermas, forty or fifty years before 


86 There is no meeting of Jesus with these three mentioned in our New 
Testament. Jesus was seen by Peter, by the women, by the two going to Emmaus, 
then by the Eleven and other larger groups. The extract here shows the influence 


upon Clement of the Gnostic idea of Christianity, as a knowledge of hidden © 


mysteries, a superior philosophy. . 

87 Victor was the fourth Roman bishop to bear a Latin name. The Liber 
Pontificalis, which in his case may be recording a real tradition, says that he was 
a provincial from Africa. L. R. Loomis, The Book of the Popes, 17. The province 
of Africa had probably received Christianity from Rome and the African church 
appears to have regarded the Roman with special deference, and to have had an 
exalted idea of the respect due to its bishop. Supra, p. 218. Jerome tells us that 
Victor wrote several books “ of minor importance” in Latin. De Viris Illustribus, 
C. 34. 88 Supra, p. 242. 


4 ‘ 
me 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 275 


Victor, when dogma was still hazy and ill-defined, such a view 
as this might be vaguely suggested in the course of a lengthy 
treatise, otherwise regarded as useful, and might escape notice 
or denunciation. The Shepherd was read constantly in the 
churches without apparently giving offense. But when later one 
Theodotus from Byzantium came to Rome and taught what 
seems to have been a genuine attempt at a rationalistic form 
of Christianity and. a simple method of textual criticism,®® 
Victor detected the heresy lurking in such teaching and excom- 
municated Theodotus, as Eleutherus had expelled Marcion. 
Theodotus seems to have accepted his excommunication without 
a struggle and to have set about founding an independent sect, 
with its own organization and salaried bishops. A few years 
later, at the time that this pamphlet was written, Artemon was 
the leader of the Adoptionists and they were evidently main- 
taining not only that their doctrine was based upon the New 
Testament and the traditions of the earliest believers but even 
that the bishops of Rome down to Victor himself had counte- 
nanced or approved it. 

Victor was the first bishop whom we know to have had 
entrée and influence at the court of the emperor, at least dur- 
ing the period when Marcia was the favorite mistress of Com- 
modus. She herself may have had Christian relatives or have 
grown up in a Christian environment. She is called a “ devout 
woman ” and, perhaps, was anxious to propitiate her friends by 
using her power over Commodus to some laudable end. At any 
rate, she procured from him his consent to the release of the 
Christian prisoners who had been sentenced to labor in the mines 
of Sardinia and got from Victor the list of such prisoners to be 
sent to the officials in Sardinia. It is possible that Victor 
prompted her to the whole enterprise. We mention the episode 
here, though it is found in an account of the early adventures 
of Callistus, some pages further on.” 

But the most famous act of Victor is yet to be related. 
During the ten or twelve years of his pontificate, the difference 

89 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 28, 2, 8, 13-19. A. Harnack, History of 


Dogma, trans. by N. Buchanan, Vol. III, pp. 1-77. 
90 Infra, p. 308. 


276 THE SEE OF PETER 


between the churches over the date of holding the Easter celebra- 
tion, which we have already described,** assumed suddenly the 
proportions of a grave controversy. ‘The systematization of 
Christian ideas and practice was proceeding apace and any ob- 
stacle to outward uniformity in a conspicuous matter like the 
date of keeping Easter seemed now more serious than it had ever 
done before. Synods of all the bishops in each province were 
meeting to unite upon the policy to be adopted by the churches in 
that province and to exchange opinions with similar synods rep- 
resenting other provinces. In such an assembly the bishops of 
Asia Minor had voted to suppress the Montanists.* Each 
synod was as yet, however, supreme in its own province. It 
was desirable that the various synods should reach the same 


conclusion on any given question, but there was no way of com- ~ 


pelling them to do so. Harmony must be the voluntary fruit of 
the spirit of brotherhood. About the year 190, these provincial 
synods up and down the Mediterranean at Victor’s suggestion 
discussed the importance of a general agreement upon the date 
for commemorating the Lord’s resurrection. A concerted effort 
was made to come to a conclusion that should be accepted by 
everyone. Clement, as head of the school at Alexandria, pub- 
lished a summary of the traditions he had collected in favor of the 
Sunday observance. The great majority resolved upon the cele- 
bration of the proper day of the week, namely, Sunday, rather 
than of the exact day of the Jewish month. Synods in Palestine, 
Pontus, Mesopotamia, Rome, Gaul and elsewhere issued state- 
ments to that effect and despatched them to one another. But 
the church in Asia Minor, of which Polycarp had been a mem- 
ber and which possessed its own memories of the apostle John 
and the evangelist Philip, protested that it could not in loyalty 
to its tradition, preserved by its bishops, forsake its ancient cus- 
tom but must continue to celebrate the fourteenth day of Nisam. 

The effect of this disappointing news upon Victor seems to 
have startled all his contemporaries. With perfect assurance he 


91 Supra, p. 246. The trouble seems to have been brought to a head by 
one Blastus, a Quartodecimanian, who visited Rome and tactlessly insisted on 
arguing the question. 

92 Supra, p. 256. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 277 


“immediately undertook to cut off from the common unity the 
parishes of all Asia and such churches as agreed with them and 
wrote letters pronouncing all the brethren there totally excom- 
municate.” Assemblies of bishops, acting in concert, had ex- 
pelled heretical groups from churches in their respective prov- 
inces, and a single bishop, such as Eleutherus or Victor himself, 
had excommunicated individual heretics in his own diocese, but 
for one bishop singlehanded to excommunicate the whole church 
of another province was as yet unprecedented. The act called 
forth instant expostulation, even from bishops in full sympathy 
with Rome upon the Easter question. Irenaeus, who ten years 
before had urged Eleutherus to express his disapproval of the 
Montanists and had extolled the Roman church as the sure 
guardian of authentic tradition and who now took its side on 
the Easter question against the teachers of his youth, sent a plea 
to Victor to remember the relative insignificance of the matter 
in dispute and the profound need of peace between the branches 
of the same Church. 

As far as we know, Victor remained imperious and obdurate 
and the ban against the Asiatic church was not withdrawn dur- 
ing his lifetime. His successors may have allowed the contention 
to drop. At least, we hear no more about it, although there was 
still an Easter problem to vex the Council of Nicaea ** and 
Jerome, at the end of the fourth century, remarks that in his 
day many bishops of Asia and other districts of the Orient ad- 
hered to the Jewish calendar.** Nor do we know anything as 
to the grounds on which Victor based his right to exclude the 
eastern church. Eusebius, who had all the correspondence be- 
fore him, says not a word to enlighten us. One can only sup- 
pose that Victor gave no reason for his display of authority 
strikingly different from that already given by Irenaeus for 
the prestige of the Roman church, namely, the full and well- 
authenticated, apostolic tradition of Rome, which could not 
be in error, confirmed, as it had been, by members of other 
apostolic communions over the Empire. If this supposition be 
correct, — and we have no warrant for any other, — Victor, like 


93 Infra, pp. 469, 472, 487. 94 De Viris Illustribus, c. 35. 


278 THE SEE OF PETER 


Clement a hundred years earlier, acted as one vested not so 
much with a personal as with a corporate dignity. His right to 
coerce, such as it was, lay not in any power residing in himself 
individually to take into his hands the government of the Church 
catholic, but in the strength of the particular church body of 
which he was the appointed spokesman, the greatest church in 
Christendom, the most eminent and efficient embodiment of the 
orthodox tradition of the apostles. There was as yet no distinc- 
tion between authority derived from one apostle or from another 


and Paul’s name was still equal to Peter’s. 

There has been much discussion of the significance of Victor’s action in 
the Easter controversy. The following references will show the contrasting 
points of view. E. Schiirer, Die Paschastreitigkeiten des zweiten Jahrhun- 
derts in Zeitschrift fir katholische Theologie (Innsbriick, 1870), pp. 180-1843: 
J. Langen, Geschichte der rémischen Kirche (4 vols., Bonn, 1881-1893), 
Vol. I, pp. 182 sqg.; F. W. Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome 
(London, 1900), pp. 15-19 and Appendix; L. Duchesne, Early History of the 
Christian Church (trans. from 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 vols., London, rg10- 
1924), Vol. I, chap. XVI; J. Turmel, Histoire du dogme de la Papauté des 
Origines a la Fin du Quatriéme Siécle (Paris, 1908), pp. 65 sqq. 


Pamphlet quoted by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 28, 
3-6. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christ- 
lichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), IT’, 
500-502. | . 
For they [the disciples of Artemon] assert that all the 

first believers and the apostles themselves received and 

taught what they now say and that the truth of the gospel 
was preserved until the time of Victor, who was the thir- 
teenth bishop of Rome after Peter, but that from the time 
of his successor, Zephyrinus,”’ the truth has been corrupted. 

And their argument might be plausible if, first of all, the 

divine Scripture did not contradict them. In addition, there 


are the writings of certain brethren who lived before the 


95 The successors of Victor, Zephyrinus and Callistus, in whose day this 
pamphlet was evidently written, seem, in fact, to have carried the reaction against 
the Adoptionist theory to an extreme in the opposite direction and to have denied 
any distinction in person between the Father and the Son. Infra, pp. 304, 300. 


ee ee eT ee 8 | ee 


(ae rt Meee GN 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 279 


time of Victor, framed in defense of the truth against the 
gentiles and against the heresies that then existed. I refer 
to Justin ** and Miltiades and Tatian and Clement and many 
others, all of whom speak of Christ as God. Who does not 
know the treatises of Irenaeus *’ and Melito and others that 
describe Christ as God and man? And how many psalms 
and hymns there are, composed by faithful brethren from 
the beginning, which sing of Christ, the Word of God, and 
proclaim him divine! How then, if the doctrine held by the 
Church has been taught for so many years, can the preaching 
of it have been delayed, as they say, until the time of Victor? 
And why are they not ashamed to utter such calumnies of 
Victor, when they know well that he expelled from com- 
munion Theodotus, the cobbler, the founder and father of 
this blasphemous apostasy and the first to assert that Christ 
was a mere man? For if Victor was of their opinion, as 
their sacrilegious story relates, how could he have excom- 
municated Theodotus, the inventor of the heresy? *° 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 23-25. Text. Eusebius 
Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 488-498. 


23 A question of considerable importance arose at that 
time. For the parishes” of all Asia, on the ground that 
theirs was an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day 
of the moon, the day on which the Jews were commanded 


96 Justin Martyr, supra, pp. 125, 128. Miltiades and Tatian wrote apologies 
on behalf of Christianity against pagan philosophy in the latter half of the second 
century. On Clement of Alexandria vide supra, pp. 78, 273. It is inaccurate to 
say that he lived before the time of Victor. 

97 Trenaeus, supra, pp. 76, 261. Melito, bishop of Sardis, addressed a defense 
of Christianity to Marcus Aurelius. He is mentioned as one of the revered saints 
of Asia Minor. Infra, p. 281. 

98 The followers of Artemon seem to have drawn some line between their 
belief and that taught by Theodotus, although we know too little about either one 
to tell what it was. ; 

99 J.e., dioceses in later terminology. Asia is the Roman, proconsular province 
of that name in Asia Minor. 


280 THE SEE OF PETER 


to sacrifice the lamb, ought to be observed as the feast of 
the Savior’s Passover. They were, therefore, obliged to end 
their fasting on that day, whatever day of the week it might 
chance to be. But it was not the custom of the churches in 
the rest of the world to end it in that way, for they main- 
tained the practice that has come down from apostolic tra- 
dition of ending their fast only on the day of our Savior’s 
resurrection."” 

Synods and assemblies of bishops were held on the sub- 
ject and all with one consent, after some correspondence, 
drew up an ecclesiastical decree for persons everywhere, that 
the mystery of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead should 
be celebrated only on the Lord’s Day and that on that day 
alone should be observed the close of the paschal fast. We 
have still a resolution *” of those who then assembled in 
Palestine under the presidency of Theophilus, bishop of the 
parish at Caesarea, and of Narcissus, bishop of that at Jeru- 
salem. We have also another resolution of those who as- 
sembled at Rome to debate the same question. This bears 
the name of Bishop Victor. ‘There is also one from the 
bishops in Pontus, over whom Palmas, as the eldest, pre- 
sided, and one from the parishes in Gaul of which Irenaeus 
was bishop, and one from those in Osrhoene *”* and the cities 
in that district, and a personal letter from Bacchylus, bishop 
of the church at Corinth, and letters from many others who 
expressed the same opinion and judgment and cast the same 
vote. And the view which has been described above was 
accepted by them all. 

24 But the bishops of Asia, led by Polycrates,”** insisted 


100 J.e,, they commemorated the death of Christ on the Friday and the Easter 
feast or termination of the Lenten fast on the Sunday after the first full moon 
following the vernal equinox. 

101 The documents here enumerated by Eusebius had disappeared by Jerome’s 
day, although he says that the memory of them still survived, “ quarum memoria 
ad nos usque perdurat.” Chronicon. 

102 A region in northwestern Mesopotamia. 

103 Polycrates was bishop of Ephesus. We know nothing more of him than 
what we have here. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 281 


that they must abide by the custom handed down to them 
long before. Polycrates himself, in a letter which he 
addressed to Victor and the church of Rome, explained 
in the following words the tradition that had come down 
to him. 

“We keep the exact day, neither a later nor an earlier 
one. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which 
shall rise again on the day of the Lord’s coming, when he 
comes with glory from heaven and searches out all the saints. 
Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles,’ who 
fell asleep in Hierapolis, as did his two aged virgin daugh- 
ters; and another daughter of his, who lived in the Holy 
Spirit, now rests at Ephesus.*’’ In addition there is John, 
who leaned upon the bosom of the Lord, who as a priest wore 
the sacerdotal plate *’* and was both martyr *”’ and teacher. 
He fell asleep at Ephesus. In Smyrna, there is Polycarp,*”* 
who was both bishop and martyr, likewise Thraseas, bishop 
and martyr from Eumenia, who fell asleep in Smyrna. What 
need of mentioning Sagaris, bishop and martyr, who sleeps 
in Laodicea, or the blessed Papirius or Melito, the eunuch, 
who lived altogether in the Holy Spirit and lies in Sardis 
awaiting the episcopate from heaven, when he shall rise from 
the dead? All these kept the fourteenth day of the Pass- 
Over according to the gospel, never departing from it but 
obeying the rule of faith. 

And I also, Polycrates, who am less than you all, observe 
the tradition of my own kinsmen, to some of whom I have 


104 Probably Philip the evangelist, not Philip the apostle. The two were 
sometimes confounded. Eusebius, Church History, ed. by A. C. McGiffert, A 
Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, p. 162, 
n. 6 


eee Cj. Acts, XX], 8, 0. 

106 John was not a Jewish priest. The: words are either metaphorical or 
allude to a late and now forgotten legend. 

107 On the meaning of this word at this date vide supra, p. 260, n. 71. 

108 On Polycarp vide supra, pp. 261, 269. We know little of Thraseas, Sagaris, 
Papirius, or Melito. They all died, apparently, toward the middle of the second 
aay and had had some acquaintance with the apostles or with their immediate 

isciples. | 


282 THE SEE OF PETER 


succeeded. For seven of my kinsmen were bishops and I 
am the eighth. And my kinsmen always kept the day when 
the people put away the leaven.’” I, therefore, brethren, 
who have lived sixty-five years in the Lord and have com- 
muned with brethren from all the world and have examined 
every sacred scripture, am not daunted by terrifying words. 
For those greater than I have said: ‘ We ought to obey God 
rather than man.’ ” *° 

He then alludes to the bishops who were gathered with 
him when he wrote and who thought as he did. He says: 
“IT could name the bishops who are here assembled, whom 
you requested me to summon and I did summon. Their 
names, should I write them down, are a great multitude. 
And they, though they know me to be of little worth, have 
bestowed their approval on this letter, for they know that 
I have not carried my grey hairs in vain and have always 
lived in Christ Jesus.” 

Thereupon Victor, who was head of the church at Rome, 
immediately undertook to cut off from the common unity 
the parishes of all Asia and such churches as agreed with 
them as heterodox and he wrote letters pronouncing all the 
brethren there totally excommunicate. But this did not 
please all the bishops and they exhorted him to have some 
consideration for peace and neighborly unity and love. 
Remonstrances from them have been preserved in sharp 
rebuke of Victor. Among these was Irenaeus,’* who sent 
a letter in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he 
presided, agreeing that the mystery of the Lord’s resur- 
rection should be celebrated only on the Lord’s Day but 


109 On the first day of the Passover, the Jews began the seven days’ feast of 
unleavened bread. 

110 The tenor of this spirited passage proves that Victor had already written 
to Polycrates in a tone that he resented and had threatened him with some sort of 
penalty if he failed to come into conformity with the rest of the Church; also that 
he had bidden him call an assembly of his provincial bishops to discuss as a. body 
the course they would take. 

111 On Irenaeus vide supra, pp. 76, 261. ‘His letter to Victor has been lost 
except for the extracts given here and one or two other doubtful quotations. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 283 


properly admonishing Victor that he ought not to cut off 
whole churches of God for holding to the tradition of an 
ancient custom. 

After considerable argument, he proceeds as follows: 
“For there is dispute not only over the day but also over 
the character of the fast. For there are some who think 
that they ought to fast one day, others two and others more. 
Some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours, 
day and night.” And this variation in observance did not 
originate in our time but long before, in that of our ances- 
tors. Apparently they did not insist upon strict accuracy 
and thus in their own simplicity and with their own indi- 
vidual differences they formed more than one custom for 
their posterity. Yet they all none the less lived in peace, 
and we also live in peace with one another and our disagree- 
ment over the fast but strengthens our agreement in the 
faith.” } 

To this he adds the following account, which I may 
fittingly insert here: ‘‘ Among them were the presbyters *” 
before Soter, who presided over the church of which you are 
now the head. We mean Anicetus and Pius and Hyginus 
and Telesphorus and Xystus."* They neither observed it 
[the fourteenth day| themselves nor did they permit their 
associates to do so. Yet, although they did not observe it, 
they were nevertheless at peace with those who visited them 
from the parishes where it was observed, even though their 
observance conflicted sharply with the customs of those who 
were not observing it. But no one was ever excommuni- 
cated for this nonconformity and the presbyters before you, 


112 The fast before the celebration of the paschal supper was gradually 
lengthened during the third century until it generally covered the forty days of 
our Lent or in some quarters even more. It was evidently meant at first to mark 
the period during which Jesus lay dead, which was early computed as forty hours. 

113 The word “ presbyter ” is used even as late as this in the general sense to 
mean persons of authority or officials in a church, whether bishops, deacons, or 
priests in the more restricted sense. 

' 114 This sounds as if Irenaeus had amassed information about the Roman 
bishops as far back as Xystus I, who died about 126. 


284 THE SEE OF PETER 


who did not observe, sent the eucharist to persons from 
other parishes, who observed.” 

And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome,” in the 
time of Anicetus, they held views slightly differing about 
various points but immediately made peace with each other 
and would not quarrel even over this, their chief differ- 
ence. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not 
to observe what he had always observed in company with 
John, the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles whom 
he had known. Nor could Polycarp prevail upon Anicetus 
to adopt that observance, since he said that he ought to 
adhere to the custom of the presbyters who had preceded 
him. But, in spite of all this, they communed together and 
in the church Anicetus yielded the administration of the 
eucharist to Polycarp, plainly as a mark of respect. And 
they parted from each other in peace, both those who kept 
the observance and those who did not, maintaining the peace 
of the whole Church.” 

Thus Irenaeus, who was rightly named,” acted as 
peacemaker in this way, exhorting and negotiating, as afore- 
said, on behalf of the peace of the churches. And not only 
with Victor but also with most of the other heads of the 
churches he discussed this mooted question by letter.** 

25 The bishops in Palestine whom we have just men- 
tioned, Narcissus and Theophilus, and beside them Cassius, 
bishop of the church of Tyre, and Clarus of the church of 


115 J.e,, probably to visitors from these other churches who happened to be in 
Rome during the paschal feast and were prevented by illness or other cause from 
attending the services. The practice of sending the host to communicants unable 
to attend is mentioned before this by Justin Martyr. Apologia, I, 65. 

116 For comment on this story, vide supra, pp. 246-247. 

117 The name Irenaeus is derived from the Greek, eipjvn, z.e., peace. To 
Irenaeus, with his ties to both the eastern and the western churches, this harsh 
sundering of unity must have been a deep grief. He apparently made every effort 
in his power to bring back the peace. 

118 These letters are lost in their entirety but a fragment or two more from 
the letter to Victor or from one of those to another bishop may be found in 
Pseudo-Justinian, Quaestiones et Responsa ad Orthodoxos, and in Maximus of 
Turin’s Sermon VII, De Eleemosynis. Cf. W. W. Harvey, Sancti Irenaei Libri 
Quinque Adversus Haereses (2 vols., Cambridge, 1857), Vol. II, pp. 477, 478, 
where the text of these short fragments is given, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 285 


Ptolemais and others who joined them,**® expounded at 
length the tradition regarding the Passover which had come 
down to them in succession from the apostles and at the 
close of their letter added these words: “Do you’ en- 
deavor to send copies of our letter to every parish, that we 
may not be blamable for those who carelessly deceive their 
own souls. And we assure you that in Alexandria also they 
keep the same day that we do. For letters are carried from 
us to them and from them to us, so that with one accord 
and at the same time we keep the sacred day.” 


119 J.e., the synod held in Palestine, vide supra, p. 280. It took the Roman 
position, that Easter should be celebrated on Sunday, regardless of the day of the 
month. 

120 Eusebius omits to tell us whether this letter was addressed particularly to 
Victor or whether it was meant for the general fellowship of bishops everywhere. 


PART II 
THE CLAIM TO THE POWER OF PETER 


1. THE ASSERTION OF THE CLAIM 


TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE 


(c. 160-235) 


About the time of Victor’s death, Tertullian,’ the African 
lawyer with the caustic pen, wrote his book De Praescriptione 
Haereticorum, in which he repeated and vehemently developed 
the line of argument laid down by Irenaeus, that heresy was 
false because it rested on no sure foundation of Scripture or 
authentic tradition. To Tertullian the argument from tradition 
was even more decisive than that from Scripture, for there 
might be dispute about the meaning of Scripture and there could 
be none about that of local tradition, inasmuch as the transmitter 
of tradition possessed zpso facto the right to interpret it. In the 
course of his book Tertullian worked out far more definitely 
than had yet been done the conception of “ catholicism” as a 
characteristic of either church or faith.2 The “ catholic ” Church 
was the Church planted by the apostles in city after city through- 
out the world,*® preserving everywhere through its episcopal suc- 
cession the pure faith which the apostles taught. Thus univer- 
sality was a sign of authenticity or orthodoxy and the term 
“catholic ”’ denoted henceforth both universality in extent and 
orthodoxy in doctrine. 

The chief depositaries of trustworthy tradition were, of 
course, the apostolic churches and Tertullian dwelt glowingly 

1 On Tertullian vide supra, p. 84. 

2 The word “ catholic ” had been previously applied to the Church by Ignatius 
of Antioch and the author of the Muratorian Fragment. Supra, p. 240 and n. If. 
It was also used about this time by Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus, but 
Tertullian was the first to define its significance. 

3 The belief that the original apostles preached the gospel to every nation in 


the world goes back to the end of the first century. Matthew XXVIII, 19, may 
be a later interpolation; but there is Acts I, 8. 


286 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 287 


upon the wealth of such tradition concentrated at Rome. Not 
content with Peter and Paul, he robbed Asia of the sole 
glory of John and brought him too to enrich the capital with his 
sufferings. Like Irenaeus, he proclaimed the Roman creed and 
scouted the Gnostic notion that there had been progress in 
knowledge since the apostles’ day. But although in the main 
framework of his thesis he followed Irenaeus, he argued his points 
in greater detail, often introducing citations from the New Testa- 
ment to support his contention. In such a way he quoted among 
others the momentous passage which was to open a new destiny 
to the Roman See and change the course of history. In order 
to prove that the apostles possessed knowledge adequate for the 
guidance of the churches Tertullian cited the lines contained in 
the gospel of Matthew in which Peter is called the Rock and is 
awarded the keys of heaven and the right to bind and loose.* It 
is the first extant, clear reference by any writer of the Church 
to that passage. Tertullian, at this time, treated it simply as 


# An ingenious, recent, Protestant explanation of the Matthew verses is the 
suggestion of F. J. F. Jackson and K. Lake, to the effect that they were composed 
at Antioch, during the struggle for church ‘domination between Antioch and 
Jerusalem, and were part of an attempt to elevate Peter, the apostolic founder of 
the Antiochene community, above James, the head at Jerusalem and the Lord’s 
brother. The Beginnings of Christianity, Pt. I, Vol. I, Prolegomena, pp. 328-330. 
If this be true, the Antiochenes certainly saw their handiwork return as a boomer- 
ang against them during their later struggles with Rome. For other literary traces 
of the jealousy between the gentile Christianity that derived from Peter and Paul, 
and the conservative Jewish elements, centred at Jerusalem, vide supra, pp. 125-126. 

5 We have already noted that the author of the Latin, second-century Acts 
of Peter, does not seem to have known this passage, although he apparently had 
some acquaintance, at first or second hand, with Matthew’s gospel. Supra, p. 143, 
n. 59. That the words were, however, to be found in manuscripts of that gospel 
current in Rome after the middle of the century seems to be established by the 
fact of their appearance in the Diatessaron or Harmony of the Four Gospels, com- 
piled between 170 and 180 by Tatian, an Assyrian pupil of Justin Martyr at Rome. 
Tatian wrote the Diatessaron in Syriac on his return to his own country after 
Justin’s death, but he based his work undoubtedly on western texts which he 
brought back with him. The book itself in its original form has long been lost, 
but St. Ephraim Syrus, who lived in the middle of the fourth century, and some 
of whose commentaries, sermons and poems have come down to us, wrote a 
commentary on it and used it as a source for his quotations elsewhere from the 
gospels. Two of these quotations, translated into English, run as follows: ‘“ The 
word of our Lord, that of his Church he spake, that the gate-bars of Sheol shall 
not be able to conquer it.” “ He said to Simon, ‘ To thee I will give the keys of 
the doors.” F. C. Burkitt, St. Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospels, in Texts 
and Studies, edited by J. A. Robinson (Cambridge, 1901), Vol. VI, 2. For an 
Arabic quotation, which may also represent the text of Tatian, vide F. Haase, 
Apostel und Evangelisten in den orientalischen Uberlieferungen. Why the Mat- 
thew passage was not earlier adduced to exalt the authority of Peter is not clear, 
unless it was that the Roman church until the close of the second century rested 


288 _ THE SEE OF PETER 


a striking confirmation of one apostle’s power to found and in- 
struct churches. The idea that it could be regarded as anything 
more than a record of a special gift bestowed upon a single in- 
dividual or as creating a perpetual endowment of privilege for an 
institution does not seem to have occurred to him. 

But now that attention had been called to it, the passage 
began within a surprisingly short time to excite surmise and 
discussion. A sweeping charter of authority had been brought 
to light, conferred by the Lord himself on one of the two patron 
apostles of Rome. How far did that authority extend? Could 
any man claim it now and if so, who? Tertullian himself re- 
volved these questions further in his mind and referred to them 
at least twice within the next few years. In the Scorpiace, writ- 


ten about 205, he reached a conclusion. Every one who con- 


fesses Christ, as Peter did, carries the keys of heaven as did he. 
How, later yet, Tertullian, grown heterodox and Montanist, per- 


ceived the use to which the Roman See might put the passage 


and attacked it with bitter rage and scorn, will be shown a 
few pages farther on. 


De Praescriptione Haereticorum, cc. 17, 19-23, 32, 36. 


Text. Ed. by P. de Labriolle (Textes et Documents 
pour lV Eiude Historique du Christianisme), IV, 36-78. 


17 These heretics reject some Scriptures and alter what 
they accept with additions and omissions to suit their own 
notions. The portions that they do accept they do not ac- 
cept entire or, if they do keep some almost entire, they none 
the less corrupt them by devising various interpretations. 
A false explanation is as much an abuse to the truth as a 
spurious text. Their reckless assumptions compel them to 
upon a double foundation and a twofold tradition and had not begun to enhance 
one half at the expense of the other. Also, the gospel of Matthew may not have had 
the circulation at Rome that the others had and may not have been so frequently 
read by the gentile Christians. It was, as the Fathers of the period almost all re- 
mark, addressed to the Hebrews. Still its authenticity was undisputed and it was 
included in the first known list of canonical books of the New Testament, contained 


in the Muratorian Fragment, a Roman composition of about the age of the 
Diatessaron. 


Ss ae ay ee ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 289 


reject the passages that condemn them, but they rely upon 
those which they have manipulated by forgery and upon 
those which they have selected for their ambiguity. What 
headway can you make, you who are wise in the Scriptures, 
if every passage that supports you they repudiate and if, 
on the other hand, every passage you repudiate they 
defend? You yourself will only lose your voice in the 
argument and will gain nothing but exasperation at their 
blasphemy. 


19 For this reason we should not appeal merely to the 
Scriptures nor fight our battle on ground where victory is 
either impossible or uncertain or improbable. For a resort 
to the Scriptures would but result in placing both parties 
on an equal footing, whereas the natural order of procedure 
requires one question to be asked first, which is the only one 
now that should be discussed. ‘‘ Who are the guardians of 
the real faith? To whom do the Scriptures belong? By 
whom and through whom and when and to whom was com- 
mitted the doctrine that makes us Christians? ” For wher- 
ever the truth of Christian doctrine and faith clearly abide, 
there will be also the true Scriptures and the true interpre- 
tations and all the true Christian traditions. 

20 Christ Jesus our Lord (May he suffer me a moment 
to speak of him! ), whoever he is, of whatever God he is the 
Son, of whatever substance he is made man and God, of © 
whatever faith he is the teacher, whatever be the reward 
he promises, did while he was living on earth himself de- 
clare what he was, what he had been, what was the Father’s 
will that he fulfilled, what was the duty of man that he 
ordained; and he declared this either openly to the people 
or privately to his disciples. Of the latter he had chosen 
twelve leaders to be with him and had destined them to 
become the teachers of the nations. Accordingly, after one 
of them had been cast out, he commanded the eleven others, 


290 THE SEE OF PETER 


on his departure to his Father after his resurrection, to “ go 
and teach the nations ” and to “ baptize them into the Father 
and into the Son and into the Holy Ghost.” ® 

Immediately, therefore, the apostles, whom their title 
shows to be “ the sent,” ’ in fulfilment of a prophecy con- 
tained in a psalm of David,°* selected by lot Matthias as the 
twelfth in the place of Judas and received the promised 
power of the Holy Ghost for the gift of miracles and utter- 
ance. After first bearing witness to the faith in Jesus Christ 
and establishing churches throughout Judaea, they then 
went forth into the world and preached the same doctrine 
and the same faith to the nations. Thus in every city they 
founded churches, from which other churches in turn derived 
the tradition of faith and the seeds of doctrine and are every 
day deriving them, in order that they may really become 
churches. Indeed, for this reason they too may be regarded 
as apostolic, because they are the offspring of apostolic 
churches. Every kind of thing must needs be classified ac- 
cording to its origin. Therefore, these many great churches 
are but the one primitive Church and are all apostolic, while 
they one and all maintain their unity by peaceful communion 
and terms of brotherhood and association in hospitality, 
relations governed by one consideration, which is, the one 
tradition of the one mystery.” 

21 Hence, accordingly, we deduce our rule. Inasmuch 
as the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles out to preach, 
none should be received as preachers but those whom Christ 
appointed, for “no man knoweth the Father save the Son 
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” *° Nor has 
the Son appeared to reveal him to any but the apostles, 

6 Matthew, XXVIII, 10. 

7 The Greek word dzdéc7odos, apostolos, is derived from the verb dmogréAd\w, 
sf Psalm CVIII, 8. (In King James Version, Psalm CIX, 8.) Cf. Acts, I, 
15-20. 


9 The Latin word is sacramenti. 
10 Matthew, XI, 27. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 201 


whom he sent forth to preach the message which he revealed 
to them. Now what was the message which they preached? 
In other words, what was that which Christ revealed to 
them? Here I must maintain that this can be rightfully 
attested only by such churches as the apostles founded in 
person, preaching the gospel to them directly, both viva 
voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by letter. If this 
be so, it is also plain that all doctrine which is in accord 
with these apostolic churches, these moulds and sources of 
the faith, must be regarded as true, as comprising undoubt- 
edly that which the churches received from the apostles, the 
apostles from Christ and Christ from God, but that all doc- 
trine must be branded as false which controverts the truth 
of the churches and of the apostles and of Christ and of 
God. 

Finally, we must show whether this our doctrine, the 
rule for which we have just given, is indeed derived from 
the tradition of the apostles and whether all other doctrines, 
by the same evidence, originate in falsehood. We are in 
communion with the apostolic churches, for our doctrine 
differs in no respect from theirs. This is the sign of our 
truth. 

22 Our proof is, actually, so close at hand that when 
it is once produced, there is no room left for argument. Let 
us, therefore, just as if we had no proof to offer, give our 
opponents opportunity for a while, if they think that they 
can discover some method of invalidating our rule. They 
often tell us that the apostles did not know everything. 
Then, possessed by the spirit of folly, they veer about to the 
opposite position and declare that the apostles undoubtedly 
knew everything but that they did not entrust all their 
knowledge to everyone. In either case they expose Christ 
to blame for having sent forth apostles who had either too 
little instruction or else too little honesty. 

For what man of sane mind can suppose that those 


292 THE SEE OF PETER 


whom the Lord ordained to be teachers, who were kept by 
him as his inseparable companions, disciples and intimate 
friends and to whom, “ when they were alone, he did ex- 
pound ” * everything obscure, telling them that to them ‘“ it 
was given to know these mysteries” which the people 
were not permitted to understand, were ignorant of any- 
thing? Was anything withheld from Peter, who was called 
““the rock on which the church should be built,” who also 
obtained “‘ the keys of the kingdom of heaven ” with the 
power of loosing and binding in heaven and on earth? * 
Or was anything hidden from John, the most beloved dis- 
ciple of the Lord, who used to lean upon his breast, to 
whom alone the Lord pointed out Judas as the traitor “ 
and whom he commended to Mary as a son in his own 
stead? ** How far was he aiming to keep them in ignorance, 
to whom he manifested his glory and Moses and Elias and, 
above all, the voice of his Father in heaven? ® .. . 

23 But then, in order to stamp the apostles as ignorant, 
the heretics advance the case of Peter and his companions, 
who were reproved by Paul.’ ‘‘ These did very wrong,” 
they say, so as to build upon this assertion their other argu- 
ment, that it has been possible since the apostles to reach 
a fuller knowledge, such as Paul had attained when he re- 
- buked his predecessors. ... They have yet to prove from 
the fact which they allege, namely, that Peter was rebuked 
by Paul, that Paul introduced a different form of gospel 
from that which Peter and the rest had previously preached. 
The truth is that after Paul’s conversion from persecutor 
to preacher, he was brought as one of the brethren to the 
brethren by the brethren,” that is, to them by men who 
had received their faith from the apostles’ hands. After- 
wards, as he himself relates, he “‘ went up to Jerusalem to 


11 Mark, IV, 34. 15 John, XIX, 25-27. 
12 Matthew, XIII, 11; Luke, VIII, 10. 16 Mark, IX, 1-6. 
13 Matthew, XVI, 18, 10. 17 Galatians, II, 11. 


14 John, XIII, 23-26. co Acts, IX, 27. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 203 


visit Peter ” *® because of his office and by right, undoubt- 
edly, of their common belief and preaching. For the 
brethren would not have marvelled at his transformation 
from persecutor to preacher, if he had preached a doctrine 
at variance with theirs, nor would they have magnified the 
Lord, because his enemy Paul had submitted to him.” ... 

24 I am not so lofty, or rather so low, that I should set 
apostles against one another. But inasmuch as our per- 
verse cavillers enlarge upon the rebuke in question for the 
purpose of bringing the earlier form of doctrine into sus- 
picion, I will offer a defense on behalf of Peter, to the effect 
that Paul himself said that he was “‘ made all things to all 
men, to the Jews a Jew, to those who were not Jews as one 
who was not a Jew, that he might win all.” ... Let 
those beware who pass sentence on the apostles! It is 
fortunate that Peter is on a level with Paul in martyrdom.” 


32 But if there be any heretics bold enough to claim 
a foundation during the apostolic age, so that they may 
seem thereby to be derived from the apostles, because they 
existed in the apostles’ time, we can say to them: “ Let 
them produce the original records of their churches! Let 
them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due 
succession from the beginning, so that their bishop may show 
as his ordainer and predecessor one of the apostles or one 
of the apostles’ disciples!” For in this form the apostolic 
churches do present their registers, such as the church of 
Smyrna, which shows that Polycarp was appointed thereto 
by John, and the church of Rome, which states that Clement 

19 Galatians, I, 18. 

20 Galatians, I, 24; Acts, IX, 21. 

21 I Corinthians, IX, 20 sqg. Tertullian goes on to remark that Peter might 
“a a Paul for circumcising Timothy after forbidding circumcision. Acts, 


22 This passage amounts to an argument that Peter is not to be considered 
inferior to Paul, 


204 THE SEE OF PETER 


was ordained by Peter.** In the same way other churches 
likewise point back to men ordained to the episcopate by 
the apostles, whom they regard as transmitters of the 
apostolic seed... . 

36 Come then, you who would better exercise your wits 
about the business of your own salvation, recall the various 
apostolic churches in which the actual chairs of the apostles 
are still standing in their places, in which their own authentic 
letters are read, repeating the voice and calling up the face 
of each of them severally. Achaia is very near you, where 
you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, 
you have Philippi. If you can travel into Asia, you have 
Ephesus. But if you are near Italy, you have Rome, whence 
also our authority is derived close at hand.” How happy 
is that church on which the apostles poured forth all their 
teaching, together with their blood! Where Peter endured 
a passion like his Lord’s! Where Paul won his crown in a 
death like John’s!*” Where the apostle John was first 
plunged unhurt into boiling oil and then banished to an 
island!** See what she has learned, what she has taught, 
what fellowship she has had with our churches too in 
Africa! One God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the 
universe, and Christ Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, Son of 
God the Creator, and the resurrection of the flesh.’ To 
the writings of the evangelists and the apostles she adds the 
law and the prophets and therefrom she imbibes her faith. 


23 This clause proves the existence at the end of the second century of some 
kind of documentary record intended to show that the Roman bishopric had been 
formally established in the person of Clement by an apostle. Peter, as the leading 
member of the Twelve, had been selected for founder rather than Paul. His 
authority served better to set off against John’s in the Easter controversy. 
Clement, already famous as the author of the Epistle and mentioned as one who 
had known the apostles, had been chosen to receive the apostolic ordination, to 
the neglect of Linus and Cletus. Supra, pp. 85, n. 63, 162 ff. 

24 Supra, p. 218. 

25 J.e., John the Baptist. 

26 Supra, p. 287. 

27 Compare this with Irenaeus’ summary of the Roman creed. Supra, p. 271. 
Also supra, p. 268. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 295 


This faith she seals with water, arrays with the Holy Ghost, 
feeds with the eucharist, strengthens with martyrdom and 
against this faith and practice she admits no gainsayer. 


Adversus Marcionem, IV, 13. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XLVII, 458. 


He [Christ] changes Simon’s name to Peter, just as also 
the Creator changed the names of Abram and Sarai and 
Ausea, calling the last Jesus [ Joshua| and adding a syllable 
to each of the former. But why “ Peter’? If it was for 
the vigor of his faith, there are many solid materials that 
might have furnished a name for their strength. Or was it 
because Christ is both a rock and a stone? As we read that 
he was set “for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of 
offense.” ** I omit the remainder of the passage. It was 
his pleasure then to bestow upon the dearest of his disciples 
a name drawn especially from the figures applied to himself, 
and it was, I think, more peculiarly fit than one unassociated 
with himself. 


Scorpiace, X. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum, XX", 167. 


. . . For although you think heaven still closed, remem- 
ber that the Lord left the keys of it here to Peter and 
through him to the Church; and everyone who has been put 
to the trial *® and made confession will carry them with him. 


ZEPHYRINUS (198-217) AND CALuistus I (217-222) 


Bishop Victor had been prominent in the movement about 
the year 190 to bring into closer working harmony the scattered 
28 Tsaias, VIII, 14; 1 Peter, II, 8. 


29 The Latin word quaestionem was used for judicial examination, often ac- 
companied by torture. On the motive of the tract Scorpiace, vide supra, p. 85. 


296 THE SEE OF PETER 


branches of the Christian Church and, as spokesman and head 
of the community at Rome, had attempted to assume the execu- 
tive leadership of the loose federation of provincial synods. 
Under his two successors a formal claim to personal supremacy 
was put forward, based upon a commission from the Lord to the 
founder of the Roman bishopric. By the year 222, when Cal- 
listus died, the Petrine theory had, in effect, been formulated 
and at least one application of it had been made in practice. 
Here again, however, the documents, though fuller than hereto- 
fore, are barely sufficient to give us an inkling of what took place. 
We have no pronunciamento from either bishop concerned. As 
in the case of Victor, we must surmise what they did from the 
antagonism and indignation which they aroused. 

There is some uncertainty as to which of these two bishops 
was the first to assert that his position, by virtue of the com- 
mission to Peter, differed in kind from that of other bishops, or 
that he was in point of rank “ bishop of the bishops,” as Ter- 
tullian wrathfully styles him. Tertullian lived through both pon- 
tificates and he gives no name nor any circumstance by which 
we can date his allusion. According to Hippolytus, Callistus 
dominated episcopal policy for years before his own election to 
the office, so that we may here for brevity’s sake speak of the 
author of this step as Callistus, although Zephyrinus may at the 
time have been his mouthpiece. Nor have we any account of 
the occasion when the passage from Matthew was first used 
as a warrant for papal authority.*° From Hippolytus we may 
infer that it was brought forward to justify a departure from 
precedent in the matter of church discipline and the introduction 
by Callistus of new views as to the efficacy of penance. As a 
matter of fact, the earliest penitential codes, with penalties 
graded to punish various sins, date from this period. The first 
modification in the austerity of the primitive Church had, as we 
have observed, been made about the time of Hermas.** The 
further relaxation of the moral standard by Callistus was bound 
to meet with bitter resistance from earnest-minded Christians 


30 In the apocryphal letter of Clement to James, it is put into the mouth of 
Peter, as a warrant of his authority which he is transferring to Clement. Supra, 
p. 164. This letter, however, was probably composed after the beginning of the 
third century. 31 Supra, p. 243. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 207 


everywhere. He seems to have wasted no breath in defending 
his policy by the authority of the Roman church. The canon of 
the New Testament was now pretty generally accepted as the 
final word, as far as it went, on all questions of faith and practice 
and already someone in the Roman congregation had perceived 
the possibilities latent in the passage to which Tertullian had 
drawn attention a few years previously.** Whatever innovations, 
therefore, Callistus proposed he now backed by his individual 
power, as successor of 'the apostle Peter, to open and close the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Tertullian, who had magnified the Roman church under Vic- 
tor and defended it against pagans, Jews and heretics, found 
Callistus too much for him, as Irenaeus before him had found 
Victor.** He was one who grew more strenuous, more impatient 
of change and compromise as he grew older. In protest against 
the new policy of broader inclusiveness he joined the Montanist 
party and produced pamphlets denouncing fiercely the betrayal 
of the older, purer Christianity. Among these was a sarcastic 
invective on the subject of clerical pretension, entitled De 
Pudicitia, On Modesty, from which we quote two extracts for 
the light they throw on the situation. Vainly he tried to undo 
the effect of the fateful quotation from Matthew, by pointing 
out that the gift of authority to Peter was a special reward for 
an individual act of loyalty, not the perquisite of an office, and 
that if it were of such a nature as to be transmitted to anyone, 
it must be to those who merited it spiritually, as Peter did. 

More specific information as to the character and careers of 
Zephyrinus and Callistus is contained in a long diatribe against 
them, written by another conservative, Hippolytus, bishop ap- 
parently of a group that had broken away temporarily, at least, 
from the orthodox community and set up an independent organi- 
zation in or near Rome. Hippolytus was a scholar with scien- 
tific tastes, who wrote on chronology, magic and astrology, as 
well as on Christian doctrine and exegesis.** Between 220 and 

32 Supra, pp. 292, 205. 

38 Supra, pp. 277,282. 

34 A statue of Hippolytus, with the names of many of his books and his 


chronological tables engraved upon the back, was unearthed in 1551 and is now 
in the Lateran Museum. 


298 THE SEE OF PETER 


230 he published a Refutation of all Heresies, known also as the 
Philosophumena, in ten books, of which Books I and V—X are 
still extant. After reviewing the fallacious philosophies and 
superstitions of the pagans and the errors that had beset the 
early Christians, he reached in Book IX the heresies of his own 
day, among which he classed the novel doctrines of Callistus. 
Callistus himself he regarded as the evil genius of the Church, a 
profane and low-lived trifler with sacred things. In order utterly 
to discredit both him and his ideas, he inserted into his theologi- 
cal disquisition an account of Callistus’ early adventurous life. 
This account we give for the picture it affords of the local situa- 
tion as well as of the making of a bishop. The reader must, 
however, be on his guard all through against the animus of the 
writer, which leads him to put a dark interpretation upon every 
incident of the story. Callistus seems to have been a man of 
vivid fancy and a dramatic temperament. In his youth, as the 
slave of an imperial official, he mismanaged the affairs of a bank 
that his master had entrusted to him and fled in panic to a ship 
about to sail from the harbor of Porto. When pursued by his 
master he leapt overboard to drown himself and was with diffi- 
culty rescued by the sailors. Later, a thirst for martyrdom led 
him to interrupt the Sabbath services in a Jewish synagogue by 
rising to denounce the law of Moses. In the riot that naturally 
ensued he almost perished and was sentenced by the prefect of 
the city to the Sardinian mines as a disturber of the peace. He 
was released in the general pardon that Marcia procured from 
Commodus, at the instigation, perhaps, of Bishop Victor, and 
was granted by Victor a small position in connection with the 
church at Antium. 

Upon the accession of Zephyrinus, a dull man according to 
Hippolytus, Callistus gradually established an ascendency over 
him and obtained his own return to Rome, where eventually he 
was much in evidence as Zephyrinus’ adviser and assistant. 
Officially he was in charge of one of the suburban cemeteries. 
During these years and during the five that followed of his own 
pontificate, he was responsible for the initiation of various poli- 
cies that marked the beginning of radical changes in the consti- 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 299 


tution of the Church. We have already alluded to his extension 
of the privilege of repentance and his emphasis upon the forgiv- 
ing grace of God and the all-embracing charity of the Church. 
He seems to have condoned second marriages among the clergy 
and to have countenanced relations between Christian noble- 
women and their freedmen or slaves, which the Roman civil law 
attempted to discourage. Perhaps the memories of his own 
scapegrace youth made him more lenient toward the temptations 
of others. Some lowering of the bars was probably inevitable, 
as the Church increased in numbers and prosperity under the 
Severi. All these departures from the old, rigid rules, so shock- 
ing to the soberer minded, he sanctioned by his fullness of power 
as the successor of Peter. Hippolytus’ scorn was as futile as 
Tertullian’s. Before Zephyrinus’ death, Origen visited Rome 
and some years afterward wrote a careful exposition of the 
Matthew passage, calculated to refute entirely the Roman inter- 
pretation,®*® but his labor also was as good as lost, except as it 
furnished support for the opposition of a later generation to 
Roman domination. One by one the churches of the Empire 
adopted in modified form the new penitential system, by which 
atonement might be made for any carnal sin.*** After Callistus’ 
death, even Hippolytus became reconciled. We know almost 
nothing about the next bishops as far as Pontianus. They may 
have been less irritatingly self-assertive, and less inclined to ex- 
periment with points of theology. But we do know that Hip- 
polytus died in exile as a companion of Pontianus and that his 
name was enrolled as a martyr in the calendar of the orthodox 
church. 

We can barely mention Callistus’ other activities. Like his 
forerunners, he investigated and expelled heretics. Gnosticism, 
as a movement, was dying out and the cosmological theories of 
Valentinus and Marcion attracted few believers. The dogmatic 
battles of the third and fourth centuries were fought upon nar- 
rower issues, the problem of the nature of Christ and his rela- 
tion to God the Father. We have spoken of Theodotus, the 

35 Infra, pp. 317 ff. 


85a But at the end of the next century, Siricius thinks it impossible to do pen- 
ance more than once for such asin. Infra, p. 701. 


300 THE SEE OF PETER 


Adoptionist, who was excommunicated by Victor, and the sect 
which he founded.*® Under Zephyrinus and Callistus, other 
teachers came into vogue, Noetus and Sabellius, who preached 
the opposite sort of Unitarianism and elevated Christ to complete 
divinity, calling him a manifestation of God. To them the Son 
was the Father in the guise of flesh, with no distinction of person. 
New disputes broke out dividing the Church afresh; yet the dig- 
nity of the faith seemed to require a satisfactory characterization 
of its Master. Zephyrinus and Callistus inclined toward the 
so-called Monarchian party of Noetus, with some slight qualifi- 
cations, which are difficult for us to appreciate. Hippolytus, who 
remained a consistent Trinitarian, says that they actually up- 
held Noetus and that Callistus dubbed himself and the other 
Trinitarians “ ditheists,”’ *’ but also that Callistus drew a line of © 
some kind at Sabellius and at length excommunicated him. 

By posterity Callistus was remembered as the builder of a 
church edifice, the first, perhaps, to be erected within the city 
for the express purpose of Christian services. It stood on the 
site of the present Santa Maria in Trastevere, in the quarter 
beyond the Tiber populated by Jews and other foreigners.** His 
name was perpetuated a second time by a new catacomb or 
cemetery, which he had constructed near the Appian Way, where 
many of the bishops who came immediately after him were 
buried. | 
After Callistus the Papacy was never quite what it had been 
before him. Apart from the corporate prestige attaching to the 
church over which he presided, the Roman bishop thenceforth 
had his own unique and personal warrant of authority as heir of 
Peter. Peter was now Officially on record as founder of the 
Roman episcopate and new and richer legends were coming into 
circulation of the miracles he had performed at Rome.*® ‘The 
bishops themselves as we shall see, began to assume a tone of 
greater finality in dealing with whatever questions of doctrine 
or discipline arose anywhere in the Church. Callistus had also 

86 Supra, pp. 274-275, 279. 

37 T.e., of course, worshippers of two gods. If the Christians made Christ a 
god and a separate person from the Father Creator, were they not setting up two 


gods? 88 L. R. Loomis, The Book of the Popes, pp. 20-21, 
89 Supra, pp. 133 ff., 158 ff, 


a ee. Oe ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 301 


set them an example of immortalizing himself by building. 
Thus he stands as the predecessor not only of Leo I and Gregory 
VII but also of Damasus and Leo X. 


On the men and movements mentioned above, see J. B. Lightfoot, The 
Apostolic Fathers (2 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1889-1890), Pt. I, Vol. II, pp. 
317-477; R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation (2 vols., London, 
1896); A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius 
(2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), Vol I?, pp. 605-646; A. Harnack, Monarchi- 
anismus in J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopddie fir protestantische 


Theologie und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. XIII; E. Rolffs, 


Indulgenzedict des romischen Bischofs Kallist, in O. Gebhardt, A. Harnack, 
C. Schmidt (editors), Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchrist- 
lichen Literatur (45 vols., Leipzig, 1883-1924), Vol. XI; L. Duchesne, Early 
History of the Christian Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 
vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. I, chap. XVII; H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church 
History to A.D. 313 (2 vols., London, 1912), Vol. II, pp. 223-231; K. J. 
Neumann, Hippolytus von Rom in seiner Stellung zu Staat und Welt (Leip- 
zig, 1902), Pt. I; A. d’Alés, La Théologie de Saint Hippolyte (Paris, 1906); 
A. d’Alés, L’Edit de Calliste (Paris, 1914). 


Tertullian, De Pudicitia, cc. 1, 21. Text. Corpus Scrip- 
torum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XX", 220, 269 sqq. 


1... Ihear also that there has been published an edict 
and a peremptory one too. The Pontifex Maximus,” that 
is, the bishop of the bishops, has issued a decree. “ I remit 
to such as have done penance the sins of adultery and 
fornication.” ** O edict that cannot be called ‘‘ approved ”! 
Where shall this liberality be posted up? On the spot, I 
should suppose; directly on the gates of lust, beneath the 
roofs dedicated to it! That is the place for publishing such 
a penance, where the sin itself makes its home. That is the 
place for reading the pardon, where men enter confidently 
expecting it. But this edict is read in church and proclaimed 


40 The title, of course, of the head of the Roman state religion, used ironically 
here for the head of the Roman church. Jaffé (Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 
Vol. I, p. 12) thinks that the reference is to Zephyrinus and that Tertullian wrote 
this passage before 205. The majority of scholars take it to mean Callistus. 

41 Paenitentia functis. 

42 These sins of unchastity had previously been considered unpardonable. 


Supra, p. 243. 


302 THE SEE OF PETER 


aloud in church, although the Church is virgin. Away, away, 
with such displays from the bride of Christ. 


21 So produce anew for me, O successor of the apostles, 
your examples from the prophets and I will admit the right 
divine. But you arrogate to yourself the vast power of 
forgiveness of sins, although what you have is only the duty 
of maintaining discipline, not the headship of an empire but 
of a ministry. Who and what are you to show mercy, who 
conduct yourself neither as prophet nor as apostle and are 
destitute of the virtue that is necessary for one who is 
merciful? ‘ But,” you say, ‘‘ the Church has the power of. 
forgiving sins.” If, because the Lord said to Peter: ‘‘ Upon 
this rock I will build my Church, . . . to thee have I given 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” or: ‘“‘ Whatsoever thou 
shalt bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in 
heaven,” you therefore assume that the power of binding 
and loosing has descended to you or to any church related 
to Peter, what sort of man are you, overthrowing and trans- 
forming the manifest intention of the Lord, who conferred 
the gift personally upon Peter? ‘‘ On thee,” he says, “ will 
I build my Church,” and “I will give unto thee the keys,” 
not “ unto the Church ”’; and ‘‘ whatsoever thou shalt loose 
or bind,” not ‘‘ whatsoever they shall loose or bind.” 

This is proved indeed by subsequent events. On Peter 
in person the Church was reared, that is, through him. He 
it was who first employed the key. See: “‘ Men of Israel, 
let what I say sink into your ears! Jesus of Nazareth, a 
man destined by God for you,” ** and so on. He, likewise, 
was the first to unbar in baptism through Christ the en- 
trance to the heavenly kingdom, where the sins that were 
aforetime bound are loosed and those that are not loosed 
are bound, according to true salvation. Ananias he bound 


43 Acts, II, 22. 


. THE RISE OF THE SEE 303 


with the chain of death and the weak in the feet he loosed 
from his infirmity.“ Moreover, in the dispute as to the 
observance or non-observance of the law, Peter was first of 
all to be imbued with the Spirit and to proclaim the calling 
of the gentiles, saying: ‘‘ Why do ye tempt the Lord to lay 
upon the brethren a yoke which neither we nor our fathers 
were able to bear? Nevertheless through the grace of Jesus 
we believe that we shall be saved even as they.” *” These 
words both loosed the parts-of the law which they then 
disregarded and bound those which they kept. 

Furthermore, the power of loosing and binding delivered 
to Peter had naught to do with the mortal sins of believers. 
If the Lord bade him be merciful to a brother who had 
sinned against him seventy times seven,’ surely he would 
have commanded him to bind, that is retain, no sin com- 
mitted still later, except only such as the man committed 
against the Lord, not against a brother. For the very right 
to forgive sins committed against a man is itself a sentence 
against the forgiveness of sins against God. 

What now has this to do with the Church and in par- 
ticular your church, O follower of the Spirit? ** As this 
power was conferred upon Peter personally, so it belongs to 
spiritual men, whether apostle or prophet. For the true 
Church is by nature and origin the Spirit himself, in whom 
is the Trinity of the one Godhead, Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit. He unites together that Church which the Lord made 
to consist of three. So ever since then, any number of 
persons who join together in faith is accounted a church by 
its Author and Consecrator. The Church, indeed, will for- 
give sins but only the Church of the Spirit, through the voice 
of a spiritual man, not the Church which is merely a collec- 


** Acts, III, 7. 

ey Acts, &V, 10, IT. 

46 Matthew, XVIII, 22. 

47 “ Psychic.” The Montanists called themselves men of the Spirit in contrast 
to the orthodox, governed by tiadition and a clerical hierarchy. 


304 THE SEE OF PETER 


tion of bishops. For justice and judgment belong to the 
Lord, not to a servant; to God alone, not to a priest. 


Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium, IX, 2, 5-7. 
Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XVI, Pt. 3, 
3369-3372, 3377-3388. 


2 There appeared a man, Noetus by name, a native of 
Smyrna, who introduced a heresy based upon the theories 
of Heraclitus. And a man called Epigonus became his as- 
sistant and pupil and during a sojourn at Rome disseminated 
there his impious opinions. Then Cleomenes, an alien from 
the church in way of life and conduct, became his disciple © 
and confirmed his doctrines. At that time Zephyrinus, a 
dull and disgracefully corrupt person, imagined that he was 
governing the church. He was induced by bribes to con- 
nive at those who met to be taught by Cleomenes and he 
himself, in course of time, was enticed away and fell head- 
long into the same error, with Callistus as his adviser and © 
champion in these wicked ideas. As for the life of Callistus 
and the heresy invented by him, I shall describe them a little 
later. During the successive terms of these bishops, the 
heretical school grew stronger and increased in numbers, 
because Zephyrinus and Callistus helped them. Yet never 
have we joined with them but have often opposed and 
reasoned with them and forced them to acknowledge reluc- 
tantly the truth. And they, abashed and constrained by 
the truth, have for the moment confessed their errors but 
soon pallowed again in the same mire. 

5 ... Now everyone knows that he [Noetus] says that 
the or, aan the Father are the same. For he uses the 
following words: ‘‘So even when the Father had not been 
born, he yet was rightfully called Father; and when it 


48 The authorship of the Refutatio has been only recently established. The 
book is printed in Migne among the works of Origen. In that text, the numbering 
of the chapters here translated is 7, 10-12. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 305 


pleased him to undergo birth, he was born and was born his 
own Son, not another’s.”” And thus he thinks to establish 
the undivided sovereignty “ of God by maintaining that the 
Father and Son so-called are one and the same, not one 
person produced from another, but himself from himself, 
and that God is called by the name of Father or Son with 
the changes of time, but that he is the one who was made 
manifest and endured birth from a virgin and dwelt as a 
man among men. By reason of the birth by which he was 
born he declared himself a Son to those who saw him; yet 
to those who comprehended him he made no secret of his 
being the Father. He was nailed to a tree and suffered 
and he commended his spirit unto himself and died, yet 
he did not die. And on the third day he raised himself 
HOGA. 
6 Callistus supported this heresy, for he was a man 
fertile in wickedness and subtle in deceit, scheming to secure 
the episcopal chair. Zephyrinus was a dull and uneducated 
man, ignorant of ecclesiastical terminology, whom Callistus 
was able to seduce by gifts and illicit pressure to take what- 
ever course of action he pleased, for he was open to bribery 
and loved money. In this way Callistus continually worked 
upon him to create disturbances among the brethren, while 
he himself then took care by crafty words to attach both 
factions to himself. . . . [Callistus contaminates Sabellius 
with the heresy of Cleomenes. | 

And Callistus brought forward Zephyrinus himself and 
persuaded him to say in public: “‘ I know that there is one 
God, Christ Jesus, and I know that there is no other but him, 
who was born and suffered.” And again he said: “ The 
Father did not die but the Son.” In this way Callistus 
stirred up ceaseless controversy among the people. But we, 
who understood his motives, did not yield to him but re- 
proved and withstood him for the truth’s sake. And he 


49 yovapxiav. This is known as the Monarchian doctrine, 


306 THE SEE OF PETER 


sank deep into folly because everyone acquiesced in his 
hypocrisy, although we did not, and he called us ditheists,” 
venting fiercely upon us the venom concealed within him. 
It seems advisable to us now to give some account of his 
life, inasmuch as he was born about the same time as our- 
selves, so that, when we have exposed the man’s character, 
the heresy which he attempted to establish may be plainly 
recognized and perhaps seen to be senseless by persons of 
intelligence. He became a martyr” during the time when 
Fuscianus was prefect of Rome and the manner of his 
martyrdom was as follows. 

7 Callistus was a slave of one Carpophorus, a man of 
the faith, belonging to Caesar’s household.” To him, as a 
member of the faith, Carpophorus entrusted a considerable 
sum of money with directions to invest it in the business 
of banking. On receipt of the money, Callistus attempted 
to start a bank in the quarter known as Piscina Publica ™ 
and eventually many deposits were committed to him, as 
Carpophorus’ representative, by widows and brethren. 
However, he made away with everything and fell into great 
difficulties. And after he had reached that condition, some- 
one informed Carpophorus, who told him that he would 
require an account from him. Then Callistus, realizing all 


50 That is to say, that the orthodox in acknowledging two persons in the God- 
head were acknowledging two gods. 

51 Another instance of the use of the word “ martyr” in its early sense of 
witness for the faith. Fuscianus did not put Callistus to death, only sent him to 
the mines, as we shall see. Tradition, however, in time made Callistus a martyr 
again in his death and his name is venerated on October the 14th. Vide Acta 
Sanctorum under the date. 

52 During the reign of Commodus, there was an influx of new members into 
the church from the higher social circles. Eusebius, writing of the period, says: 
‘““A large number of people in Rome, distinguished for wealth or birth, turned 
unto salvation, together with all their households and families.” Historia Ecclesi- 
astica, V, 21, 1. This Carpophorus may be the one who about this time erected a 
funeral monument at Rome to himself, his family, including his brother, nephews, 
foster son and their freedmen, and his own freed slaves and their children. The 
inscription, while not Christian, contains no sign of paganism. A. Harnack, The 
Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. Il, p. 47, n. 2. 

53 Tluoxwy mwov8d\uxp. The Latin name is written out by Hippolytus in Greek 
letters. The Piscina or Fishmarket was one of the fourteen districts of Rome and 
a resort of money-lenders. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 307 


this and anticipating danger from his master, fled in haste 
and made for the sea. And finding a ship at Portus ready 
to sail he went aboard, expecting to sail to whatever place 
she happened to be bound. But he could not escape detec- 
tion in that way, for someone sent word to Carpophorus of 
what had happened. On hearing the news Carpophorus 
went immediately to Portus and tried to reach the ship, 
which was anchored in the middle of the harbor. But as 
the boatman was a slow rower, Callistus in the ship saw 
his master from afar off and, realizing that he was over- 
taken, became reckless of life and in despair threw himself 
into the sea. But the sailors jumped into their boats and 
pulled him out against his will, while the people on shore 
raised loud shouts. Thus he was handed back to his master 
and brought to Rome and lodged by his master in the 
Pistrinum.”* 

But after some time had passed, brethren came to 
Carpophorus, as they are wont to do, and urged him to 
release the fugitive from punishment, telling him that Cal- 
listus claimed to have funds on deposit with certain parties. 
Then Carpophorus, who was a devout man, said that he 
cared nothing for his own property but that he was con- 
cerned for the moneys entrusted to Callistus; for many had 
wept, as they told him that they had committed their money 
to Callistus in the belief that he was Carpophorus’ repre- 
sentative. But Carpophorus yielded to the persuasion and 
ordered that Callistus be set free. The latter, however, be- 
ing obliged to pay back and unable to abscond again because 
he was watched, planned a scheme to bring about his own 
death. On a Sabbath, he pretended that he was going to 
his creditors and he broke into the synagogue of the as- 
sembled Jews and standing there provoked them to a tumult. 
Then they, under his provocation, insulted and beat him 
and haled him before Fuscianus, who was prefect of the city. 

54 Ilorpwov, the domestic treadmill of Roman slaveholders. 


308 THE SEE OF PETER 


And they entered the following complaint: “ The Romans 
have allowed us to read in public the laws of our fathers, 
but this man came in and tried to hinder us and provoked 
a disturbance among us, declaring that he was a Christian.” 
Fuscianus happened to be at that hour upon the judgment 
seat and he was indignant with Callistus on account of the 
Jews’ accusation. ‘Then someone told Carpophorus what 
was taking place and he hastened to the prefect’s judgment 
seat and exclaimed: “‘ I beg you, my lord Fuscianus, do not 
believe this fellow; for he is not a Christian but is looking 
for a chance to die, because he has squandered a quantity 
of my money, as I will prove.” The Jews, however, im- 
agined that this was a stratagem and that Carpophorus was: 
trying under this pretext to save Callistus, so with the more 
bitterness they clamored against him before the prefect. 
And Fuscianus was moved by the Jews and after scourging 
Callistus he sent him to a mine in Sardinia.” 

But, after a time, Marcia,” a concubine of Commodus, 
a devout woman, was desirous of performing some good deed 
and she summoned before her the blessed Victor, who was 
then bishop of the church, and inquired of him what martyrs 
were in Sardinia, for there were other martyrs there. And 
he gave her the names of them all but did not include 
Callistus, for he knew the wrong he had done. Then 
Marcia obtained her petition from Commodus and delivered 
the order of release to Hyacinthus, a eunuch of great age. 
And he took it and sailed to Sardinia and presented it to the 
man who was then governor of the region and set free the 
martyrs, all but Callistus. Then Callistus fell upon his 
knees and with tears implored that he also be released. So 
Hyacinthus, overcome by his importunity, requested the 
governor for him and said that it was an oversight of Marcia 


55 The air of Sardinia was considered unwholesome and for that reason the 
island was often selected as a place of exile for criminals. Hippolytus himself in 
his old age was banished thither with Bishop Pontianus. 

56 On Marcia and Victor, vide supra, p. 275. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 309 


and promised the governor that he should run no risk. In 
this way the latter was persuaded and liberated Callistus 
also. When Callistus returned, Victor was much displeased 
at what had happened but since he was a compassionate 
man, he let it go. But in order to protect himself from 
numerous reproaches, for the escapades of Callistus were 
not yet long past, and because Carpophorus was still indig- 
nant with him, Victor sent Callistus to live in Antium, as- 
signing him a monthly sum for food. And after Victor’s 
death, Zephyrinus had Callistus as assistant in the manage- 
ment of the clergy and showed him honor to his own hurt. 
He also transferred him from Antium and put him in charge 
of a cemetery. 

Callistus, who was constantly in the company of Zephy- 
rinus and, as I have already said, paid him false service, 
represented him abroad as a man able neither to form a 
judgment upon what was told him nor to comprehend Cal- 
listus’ own purposes, but all his conversation with Zephy- 
rinus was planned to flatter him. Then, after the death of 
Zephyrinus, when he saw he had secured the position for 
which he was struggling,” he expelled Sabellius, on the 
ground that he held unorthodox views, doing this in fear 
of me and fancying that by this act he could avert an 
accusation before the churches and prove that his own 
opinions were not heterodox. Thus he was an impostor 
and a knave and in course of time carried many away with 
him. ... [Description of Callistus’ heretical theology. | 
He asserts that the same Logos is both Son and Father and 
though called by a different name, is the one, indivisible 
Spirit; that the Father is not one person and the Son an- 
other, but they are one and the same; that all things are 
full of the divine Spirit, things above and things below, and 
that the Spirit that became incarnate in the Virgin is not 
other than the Father but one and the same... . “ For,” 

57 J.e., the bishopric. 


310 THE SEE OF PETER 


he says, “I shall not profess two gods, Father and Son, but 
one.” ... At one moment he lapsed into the doctrine of 
Sabellius, at another into that of Theodore,” and was not 
ashamed. 

Having embraced these errors, the impostor established 
a school to teach the aforesaid doctrine in opposition to the 
church. And he was the first to devise the idea of indulging 
men in their pleasures by declaring that he would forgive 
everyone’s sins. So if a man who attends some other con- 
gregation and is considered a Christian commits a trans- 
gression, his sin, they say, is not reckoned against him, 
provided he promptly joins the school of Callistus. And 
numerous persons who had been stricken in conscience and 
some who had left various heresies and some who had, in 
accordance with our rule, been expelled by us from the 
church, were relieved at his declaration and united with 
the rest and crowded his school. He also propounded the 
view that if a bishop commits sin, even a sin unto death, 
he need not be deposed. In his time, bishops, priests, and 
deacons who had been twice or thrice married began to be 
installed among the clergy and if one of the clergy married, 
he continued in the clergy as if he had not sinned,” for 
Callistus maintained that with regard to such a man the 
words of the apostle had been spoken: “ Who art thou that 
judgest another man’s servant?”® He insisted further 
that the parable of the tares was intended for such a case. 
“Let the tares grow together with the wheat!” That is, 
let the sinners remain in the Church! He likewise said that 
the ark of Noah was a symbol of the Church, for in it were 
dogs, wolves, ravens and everything clean and unclean; and 


58 These stood at the two opposite wings of Unitarianism. Supra, pp. 279, 
00. 
: 59 By Canon XVII of the Apostolic Constitutions, a man twice married after 
baptism could not be admitted to the clergy; by Canon XXVI, a man after 
admission to the clergy could not marry at all. Vide Bishop Siricius on this sub- 
ject, at the end of the next century. Infra, pp. 702-706. 

60 Romans, XIV, 4. 

61 Matthew, XIII, 30. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 211 


so, he declared, it must also be in the Church. Whatever 
passages he could collect bearing on this subject he inter- 
preted in this way.” 

His hearers delight in his teachings and cling to him, 
deluding themselves, and crowds pour into his school. So 
they increase in numbers and boast of the multitudes that 
come in search of pleasures that Christ forbade. In disdain 
of him they prohibit no sin, proclaiming that Callistus par- 
dons everyone who believes with him. He has even per- 
mitted women who were unmarried and were inflamed by 
passion unfitting to their age or who were unwilling to 
forfeit their rank by a legal marriage, to have whatever man 
they chose as concubine, whether he were slave or free, and 
to regard him as their husband, although they were not 
legally married to him.” ... [Further details as to such 
irregular relations.| After such brazen conduct these shame- 
less people dare to call themselves a catholic “ church. And 
other persons, supposing that they will benefit themselves, 
join with them. During Callistus’ episcopate, they have for 
the first time presumptuously administered second baptism.” 


62 The frequency with which Peter’s denial of Christ was portrayed on Roman 
Christian sarcophagi and other monuments of the third and fourth centuries may 
be due to the fact that the incident seemed to justify the Roman practice of re- 
admitting sinners. W. Lowrie, Christian Art and Archaeology, pp. 260 sqq. Cf. 
the use of Peter’s doubt on the water in a plea for pardon in the late second cen- 
tury. Acts of Peter. Supra, p. 139. 

63 Women of high birth apparently outnumbered men of the same rank in 
the Church at this time and there seems to have been a danger that they would 
either marry pagans or form secret, illicit connections to avoid losing caste by 
openly marrying Christians of a rank beneath them. Callistus proposed to recog- 
nize in the Church such irregular unions, even without legal marriage. Tertullian 
was already advising Christian girls of wealth to marry poor young men. Ad 
Uxores, II, 8. Canon XV of the synod of Elvira, held about 303, ran: ‘‘ Christian 
girls are not, because they are very numerous, to be married off to pagans, lest 
their youth and hot blood make them relax into adultery of the soul.” A. Harnack, 
The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. II, pp. 82-83. 

64 On this word vide supra, pp. 240, n. II, 286. 

65 The problem had now presented itself as to whether converts from an 
heretical sect should be baptized afresh upon their admission into the Church or 
whether the baptism which they had received from a heretic should be accepted 
by the Church as valid. Did the efficacy of the sacrament depend upon the hand 
that administered it? Except at this time, the Roman bishops took the position 
that a second baptism was not only unnecessary but actually sacrilegious. Vide 
infra, pp. 395 ff. 


312 THE SEE OF PETER 


Such then is the system instituted by the astounding Cal- 
listus. And his school still persists and preserves its customs 
and traditions, not distinguishing the persons with whom 
one should communicate but offering communion indiscrimi- 
nately to everyone. From him also they have derived their 
name, for, since Callistus was the author of their practices, 
they are called Callistians. 


2. THE CASE OF ORIGEN 
PONTIANUS 


(230-235) : 

Again, at a critical time, the documents disappear and we 
have almost no authentic information about the bishops who 
succeeded Callistus. The brief epitaph of Urban I (c. 222-230) 
is in the episcopal crypt of the cemetery of Callistus.°* Pon- 
tianus, as we have already said, died in banishment in Sardinia, 
according to a statement found in the fourth century Liberian 
Catalogue of Roman bishops,” and his body was brought back 
to Rome for interment in the same crypt. The only act ascribed 
to him is mentioned by Jerome, who toward the end of the 
following century looked up the records connected with the life 
of his hero, Origen. In 231 or 232, Origen was tried and con- 
demned for ecclesiastical insubordination, self-mutilation, and 
heterodoxy by a synod of eastern bishops under the presidency 
of Demetrius of Alexandria.** He was by this time famous far 
and wide as the greatest Christian teacher and scholar of the 
day and his condemnation was a matter of more than local im- 
portance. Other bishops in Asia and Greece protested against it 
and made him welcome in their own communions. Jerome says 
that the bishop of Rome called a synod of his own to review the 
case and that he ratified the sentence passed at Alexandria. It 
was, technically speaking, an assumption of jurisdiction over a 
member of another venerable and independent diocese but the 

66 L. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, Vol. I, p. 143, Nn. 5. 


87 Infra, p. 712. 
68 Supra, pp. 88-89. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 313 


Asiatic bishops had, perhaps, given ground for it by their refusal 
to accept the judgment of Alexandria. As Pontianus only con- 
firmed the verdict of the local tribunal, his action aroused no 
resentment in that quarter. To Jerome’s mind the motive be- 
hind all this hostility to Origen was chiefly envy of his genius. 


Jerome, Epistolae, XXXIII, Ad Paulam. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXII, 447. 


. . . Who could ever read as much as he [Origen] 
wrote? For his toil what recompense did he receive? He 
was condemned by Bishop Demetrius, in spite of the dissent 
of the prelates of Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia and Achaea. 
The city of Rome confirmed his condemnation; there too a 
synod was summoned to act against him, not because of the 
novelty of his doctrine nor because of his heresy, as some 
yelping hounds now pretend, in order to disparage him, but 
because they could not tolerate the splendor of his eloquence: 
and learning and because, when he spoke, everyone else 
seemed dumb. 


FABIANUS 


(236-250) 

After the banishment of Pontianus and the six weeks pontifi- 
cate of Anteros came the fourteen years of the bishop Fabianus. 
Eusebius, seventy-five years later, had a pleasant story of 
Fabianus’ election, which we repeat chiefly because Eusebius 
thought it worth telling. Under the tolerant protection of the 
emperors Gordian and Philip the Roman church multiplied at 
so rapid a rate and its membership was scattered so widely 
up and down the seven hills that Fabianus, during his term 
of office, found it advisable to divide the city into seven ec- 
clesiastical districts for purposes of administration and to put 
the executive affairs of each district under the supervision of a 
deacon.®® The church by this time had considerable funds at 

69 Vide The Liberian Catalogue, infra, p. 712. 


314 THE SEE OF PETER 


its disposal and its affairs included relief of the poor, care of 
widows, orphans and sick, and the construction and management 
of cemeteries.” 

Outside of Rome, the question of Origen’s standing in the 
Church was still a matter of heated dispute. Whether he wrote 
to Fabianus in an effort to procure from him a reversal of the 
verdict passed upon himself by Pontianus “ or whether, as seems 
more likely, his enemies had started some new agitation over 
some fresh piece of his writing, which he feared might stir up 
Fabianus to undertake more judicial proceedings on his own 
account, we do not know. Both Eusebius and Jerome seem to 
have read Origen’s letter but neither one tells us much about its 
content. However, the bare fact that he thought it important 
to make an apology and defense to this remote see, as well as to 
those in his own neighborhood, is significant enough. 

Fabianus died a martyr, January 20, 250, one of the first 
victims of the sudden outbreak of systematic persecution under 
Decius.”” A feature of this persecution was the imperial order 
to strike at the leaders of the Christians. Who, therefore, so 
sure to be taken at the start as the bishop of the church of 
Rome? The place that he filled in Decius’ estimation may be’ 
gauged by the remark attributed to the emperor a little later 
that he would rather hear of the appearance of a rival prince 
than of a new bishop in the capital.” For over a year the Ro- 
mans did not dare to choose another. But the persecution 
itself and its effects upon the Church will be discussed more 
fully in connection with the letters of Cyprian.” 


On the ecclesiastical districts of Fabianus see L. Duchesne, Melanges 
d’Archéologie et d’Histoire, Vol. I, p. 126; F. Gregorovius, History of the 
City of Rome in the Middle Ages (trans. by A. Hamilton, 8 vols., London, 
1894-1912), Vol. I, pp. 80-82. 


70 See Cornelius’ description of the Roman church in 251, infra, p. 384. 
41 Supra, D. 313. 

72 For more about his martyrdom, infra, pp. 331, 337 and n. 118. 

13 Infra, p. 372. 

74 Infra, pp. 329 ff. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 318 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, Chap. 29, 2-4. Text. 
Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrift- 
steller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 582-584. 


They say that Fabianus, after the death of Anteros, had 
come from the country to meet with the rest and was 
stopping at Rome and was there elected to the office through 
a marvel of divine and celestial grace. For when all the 
brethren were assembled to elect the one who should suc- 
ceed to the bishopric, the majority were considering various 
distinguished and honorable men, and Fabianus, though 
present, was in no one’s mind. But suddenly, they say, a 
dove flew in from the sky and alighted on his head, thus 
reproducing the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of 
a dove upon the Savior. Thereupon the people, all as if 
impelled by one divine spirit, with one united and eager 
voice cried out that he was worthy and immediately they 
took and set him upon the episcopal seat. 


Eusebius, op. cit., VI, 36, 4. Text. Op. cit., IT’, 590-592. 


He [Origen] wrote also to Fabianus, bishop at Rome, 
and to many other rulers of the churches regarding his own 
orthodoxy. 


Jerome, Epistolae, LXXXIV, Ad Pammachium et Oceanum. 
Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXII, 751. 


Origen himself, in the letter which he writes to Fabianus, 
bishop of the city of Rome, professes his penitence for 
writing such things and lays the blame of indiscretion on 
Ambrosius * because he had published a private composi- 
tion. 


75 A wealthy friend of Origen, who provided him with means to write and 
supplied the copyists. 


316 THE SEE OF PETER 


ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA 


(c. 185-c. 254) 


The following excerpts show something of the attitude of 
Origen *° toward the church of Rome and the wider authority 
claimed during his lifetime by the Roman bishop. While he 
was still a young man and teaching undisturbed at Alexandria, 
amassing the vast knowledge that displayed itself later in his 
writings, he took a journey to Italy expressly in order to see 
“the ancient church of Rome.” His master Clement, as we have 
noted, had failed to visit Rome in his wanderjahre “’ and Origen 
may have wanted to find out what it had to give. He went dur- 
ing the pontificate of Zephyrinus, probably between 211 and 
217." It is hard that whatever comments he made on what he 
saw have long ago been lost. If only we had them to set beside 
Hippolytus! 

Fifteen or twenty years later, Origen was compelled by high- 
handed procedure on the part of his bishop Demetrius to leave 
Alexandria under a sentence of excommunication. The bishops 
of Syria, Arabia, and Greece, who understood the situation, re- 
sented the manner in which he had been dealt with and refused 
to recognize the ban. The Roman bishop Pontianus, who must 
have known less about the circumstances, took, as we have seen, 
the side of the regularly constituted government and added the 


weight of Roman condemnation to the verdict of Egypt.” The — 


result was a temporary division in the Church. When, a few 
years afterward, a new accusation of heterodoxy was brought 
against Origen by his enemies, which seemed likely to offer ex- 
cuse for more action at Rome, Origen wrote to Fabianus, Pon-: 
tianus’ successor, as well as to other prominent bishops, to 
explain that his offending book had not been intended for pub- 
lication and that he repented having written it.*° A letter of 
that kind, from a man already excommunicated by his own 


76 On Origen vide supra, pp. 87, 312, 314. 

77 Supra, p. 273. 

78 Eusebius mentions this visit among the events of the reign of Caracalla. 
79 Supra, p. 313. 

80 Supra, p. 315. 


= 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 317 


bishop, was in effect an appeal to the other governors of the 
Church to refrain from concurrence with their colleague’s judg- 
ment. What response it awakened in Fabianus we do not know. 

Between 246 and 248, Origen wrote an exposition of the 
Matthew passage, in the course of which he rejected emphati- 
cally the Roman legalistic theory of the keys bestowed upon 
Peter to be bequeathed to the Roman bishops and developed 
with characteristic elaborateness the mystic idea of Tertullian ** 
that they were given as a reward of faith to Peter and to all who 
were faithful like him. Whether he wrote this commentary be- 
fore or after his letter to Fabianus, we would give much to hear. 
The commentary is our last word from Origen on the subject. 
We shall soon have opportunity to observe the attitude of his 
- pupils.*? 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 14, 10. Text. Euse- 
bius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 
der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 552. 


Now Adamantius, for Origen was known also by that 
name, visited Rome, as he himself somewhere says, while 
Zephyrinus was head of the Roman church, because he de- 
sired, he says, “‘ to see the ancient church of the Romans.” 
After a short stay there, he returned to Alexandria. 


Origen, /n Matihaeum, XII, 10, 11,14. Text. J.P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XIII, 995 sqq. 


10 And, perhaps, if we make like Peter the answer that 
Simon Peter made: ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv- 
ing God,” * not through revelation of flesh and blood to us 
but by a light from the Father in heaven illuminating our 
hearts, we too become like Peter and are blessed as he was, 
because the reason for his blessing has become ours, since 

8i Compare Tertullian’s exposition with Origen’s. Supra, pp. 302-304. 


82 Infra, pp. 398, 411, 419. 
83 Matthew, XVI, 16. 


318 THE SEE OF PETER 


flesh and blood have not revealed to us that Jesus is Christ, 
the Son of the living God, but the Father in heaven from 
the very heavens, so that our citizenship may be in heaven, 
has revealed to us the revelation that exalts to heaven those 
who tear away every veil from the heart and receive the 
spirit of the wisdom and revelation of God. And if we too 
say like Peter: ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God,” not as if flesh and blood had revealed it to us but 
as if a light from the Father in heaven had shone in our 
hearts, we become a Peter and to us the Word might say: 
‘“‘ Thou art Peter,” etc. For every disciple of Christ, from 
whom those drank who drank of the spiritual rock that 
followed them,™ is also himself a rock. And upon all these 
rocks is built every word of the Church and its harmonious 
polity, for upon each of the perfect, who combine words 
and deeds and thoughts to fill up blessedness, is the Church 
built by God. 

11 But if you imagine that the whole Church is built by 
God upon that one Peter alone, what will you do with John, 
the son of thunder,*’ or any other of the apostles? Or shall 
we go yet further and dare to say that against Peter alone 
the gates of hell shall not prevail but that they shall prevail 
against the other apostles and the perfect? Does not the 
promise: ‘‘ The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” 
hold with regard to everyone and to each one of them? As 
also the saying: “‘ Upon this rock I will build my Church ”? 
Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given by the Lord 
to Peter only and shall no other of the blessed receive them? 
But if the promise: “ I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven,” belongs also to the rest, why do not 
all the promises just mentioned and the words that are sub- 
joined as addressed to Peter, belong to them? For although 
in this passage the following words seem to be addressed 
to Peter alone: ‘‘ Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall 

84 T Corinthians, X, 4. 85 Mark, III, 17. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 319 


be bound in heaven,” etc., in the Gospel of John the Savior, 
after giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples and breathing 
upon them, says: “‘ Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” etc.* 

Therefore, many will say to the Savior: “ Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God ”; but not all who say it 
will say it to him by revelation not from flesh and blood 
but from the Father in heaven, who takes away the veil that 
has lain upon their hearts, in order that henceforth, “ with 
unveiled face reflecting as in a glass the glory of the Lord,” * 
they may speak through the Spirit of God and say of him: 
“Lord Jesus,” and to him: ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God.” And if anyone says this to him, not 
through revelation of flesh and blood but through the Father 
in heaven, he will obtain the promises that were spoken in 
the letter of the gospel to Peter only, but in the spirit of the 
gospel to everyone who becomes what Peter was. For all 
have the surname of “ rock” who are imitators of Christ, 
that is, of the spiritual rock that follows those who are 
saved, that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. 
They have the surname of “ rock,”’ as Christ has. Further- 
more, as members of Christ, they derive a surname from 
him and are called Christians, while from the rock they are 
called Peters. So, reasoning on from this, you may say that 
the righteous have the surname of Christ, who is Righteous- 
ness, and the wise of Christ, who is Wisdom, and thus with 
all his other names you may apply them as surnames to the 
saints. To all such persons the words of the Savior might 
be spoken: ‘Thou art Peter,” etc., down to the words: 
“prevail against it.” 

But what is the “it”? Is it the rock upon which Christ 
builds the Church or is it the Church? The phrase is am- 

86 John, XX, 22, 23. “Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall 
forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” 
It is curious that Origen does not use Matthew XVIII, 18. 


87 TI Corinthians, III, 18. 
88 T Corinthians, X, 4. 


320 THE SEE OF PETER 

biguous. Or are the rock and the Church one and the same? 
The last, I think, is the truth, for the gates of hell shall not 
prevail either against the rock upon which Christ builds the 
Church or against the Church itself, even as the way of a 
serpent on a rock, according to the word in Proverbs, can- 
not be found.*® Now if the gates of hell prevail against 
anyone, he cannot be a rock upon which Christ builds his 
Church nor the Church built by Jesus on a rock, for the rock 
is inaccessible to the serpent. It is stronger than the gates 
of hell that are opposed to it, so that by reason of its strength 
the gates of hell do not prevail against it. As the building 
of Christ, who built his own house wisely on a rock,” the 
Church cannot be opened to the gates of hell, which prevail ~ 
against everyone who is outside the rock and the Church, 
but which have no might against it. 

12 [Origen considers what is meant by a “ gate of 
hell ” and decides that it is every sin and every false doc- 
trine.” | | 

13 [He draws a contrast with the “ gates of Zion,” 
which are the virtues. | 

14 Next let us see in what sense it is said to Peter and to 
every Peter: “ I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven.” [The remainder of the paragraph describes the 
virtues that enable one to open the heavenly gates. | 

But consider how great is the might of the rock upon 
which the Church was built by Christ and how great is the 
might of everyone who says: ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of the Living God.” His judgments abide sure as if 
God were judging through him, so that in his act the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against him. But when anyone 
judges unrighteously and does not bind on earth according 
to the word of God nor loose on earth according to his will, 

89 Proverbs, XXX, 18-19. 

90 Matthew, VII, 24-25. 


91 J.e., according to Erasmus, every sin on account of which Christ was about 
to descend to Hades. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 321 


the gates of hell prevail against him. Wherever the gates of 
hell do not prevail against a man, he is judging righteously. 
Therefore, he has the keys of the kingdom of heaven, open- 
ing to those who have been loosed on earth, that they may 
also be loosed and free in heaven, and shutting to those who 
by his just judgment have been bound on earth, that they 
may also be bound and condemned in heaven. 

But when those who fill the office of bishop * make 
use of this saying, as if they were Peter, and teach that 
they have received the keys of the kingdom from the Savior 
and that whatever is bound, that is, condemned by them, is 
also bound in heaven, and whatever is allowed by them is 
loosed in heaven, we must reply that they are right, if they 
pursue the way of life for which that other Peter was told: 
“Thou art Peter.” If they are men such that upon them 
Christ might build the Church, the saying may be applied 
to them with good reason and the gates of hell should not 
prevail against them, when they wish to bind and loose. But 
if a bishop is tightly bound with the cords of his own sins,” 
he binds and looses to no avail. You may, perhaps, say that 
in the heaven which is within the wise man, that is, the 
virtues, the evil man is bound, and also that through these 
virtues he may be loosed and receive pardon for the sins 
that he committed before his virtues. But as not even God 
can bind a man unless he wears the cords of sin or iniquity 
like a “long rope or the strap of the yoke of a heifer,” ” 
no more can any Peter, whoever he may be, bind him. 
And if anyone who is not a Peter and does not possess 
what we have here described imagines that, as Peter, he 
will so bind on earth that whatever he binds is bound in 
heaven and so loose on earth that whatever he looses is 


92 Other bishops, beside the Roman, were by this time claiming the power to 
bind and loose, as successors also of Peter and of the Twelve. See the third cen- 
tury Didascalia, supra, p. 157. Also Cyprian, infra, pp. 328, 406. Origen may be 
thinking of Demetrius as well as of Pontianus. 

93 Proverbs, V, 22. 

94 Jsaias, V, 18. 


322 THE SEE OF PETER 


loosed in heaven, he is puffed up, not understanding the 
meaning of the Scriptures, and being puffed up, has fallen 
into the destruction of the devil. 


3. THE COOPERATION OF ROME AND CARTHAGE 


CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE 
(c. 200-258) 


While Tertullian was living out his exacerbated old age in 
Carthage, there was growing up in the same city one Thascius 
Cyprianus, a young man of well-to-do parentage, a good educa- 
tion and the gifts of a clear mind and much practical energy. 
We know nothing of the character of his early years but by 246, 
when he had reached middle life, he was a lawyer, as Tertul- 
lian had been, with a name for eloquence and ability, an owner 
of landed property and a person of consequence generally in 
provincial circles. What was his religious belief we do not know 
nor how his attention came to be caught by Christianity. We 
are told merely that at this point in his career he became con- 
verted and that he sold most of his farms and gardens for the 
benefit of the poor. He also set himself with ardor to master 
the sacred books, the code of his new faith, and studied indus- 
triously the Scriptures and the writings of Tertullian. In 248, 
when the bishop of Carthage died, Cyprian, although only two 
years a Christian and still a novice in the church, was already 
so prominent in the eyes of the community that public opinion 
demanded his consecration to fill the empty place. In spite of 
his own resistance, he was set forthwith in the episcopal chair. 
A group of priests, who felt, perhaps, that men longer in the 
service were being unfairly slighted, remained dissatisfied, ready 
to foment trouble, but for the first year Cyprian met no serious 
opposition. 

The treatises and correspondence of Cyprian during the eight 
years that follow, 250-258, illumine for us, as nothing else be- 
gins to do, the western church of the third century. The letters 
we shall utilize hereafter in so far as they throw light on the 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 323 


situation at Rome during that period. We quote here some ex- 
tracts from his writings that show his conception of the office of 
bishop and the government of the Church. His clear and telling 
method of statement made his works popular as those of no 
other Christian author of the age and his thought was to influ- 
ence church polity more than that of many profounder men for 
centuries afterward. 

One must remember in reading Cyprian that most of his life 
had been spent as a pagan and a lawyer. To him the Church is 
a visible society, supernaturally ordained, of course, but at the 
same time political in type, with fixed laws and government and 
privileges for its members according to their rank, as orderly as 
any state. All outside it are outside the grace of God, as bar- 
barians outside the Empire are outside the emperor’s protection. 
Within the Church are the laity and clergy, the latter constituting 
the officialdom, possessing authority by direct transmission from 
the apostles and acting as guardians of doctrine and dispensers 
of salvation, even as civil magistrates guard the law and ad- 
minister the imperial will. Whoever is estranged from his bishop 
is estranged also from the Church and from its divine sovereign. 
Cyprian does not employ this secular language, but strip his 
thought of its Christian nomenclature and it amounts to this. 
As for the power of the keys, his view is a variation on the 
Roman theory of a grant of authority for an office. To him 
it is clear that under God, the supreme Ruler, the government of 
the Church is in the hands of an aristocracy of equal bishops, 
each a successor of the apostles and responsible only to God, 
each with an equal share of the right to bind and loose. The 
Matthew passage is broadened by bringing in the text from John 
and applying them both to all bishops. Yet the keys were be- 
stowed at first on Peter alone and he alone was made the founda- 
tion of the Church. The interpretation here ceases to be purely 
legalistic and takes a mystical turn. One man, indeed, was 
chosen for honor at the outset, in order that through him might 
be symbolized the unity of the episcopate and the Church. Peter 
and after him his successors at Rome stand as corporeal re- 
minders of the unity of the organization that underlies the 


324 THE SEE OF PETER 


diversity of its members, somewhat as the modern British king 
typifies 'the unity of the British Empire. But neither Peter nor 
the Roman bishops have any longer superiority of power over the 
other apostles or the other bishops. 

Cyprian, therefore, parts company here with the later Ter- 
tullian.** His theory, like the Roman, is one of sacerdotal func- 
tion. He differs from the Romans merely in safeguarding the 
independence of the whole apostolic episcopate. Yet he con- 
cedes a special significance to Peter; and a few trifling altera- 
tions in his statements, a small interpolation here and there, 
would transform his acknowledgment of Peter’s significance into 
one of Peter’s preponderance. Such alterations had been made 
by an unknown hand before the close of the sixth century in the 
text of the most widely read of all Cyprian’s works, the De 
Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, which thenceforth was employed 
through the Middle Ages as one of the strong supports AO! the 
theory of the papal autocracy. 


Much has always been written about Cyprian. Some of the more recent 
discussions are E. W. Benson, Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work (Lon- 
don, 1897); J. Langen, Geschichte der rémischen Kirche (4 vols., Bonn, 
1881-1893), Vol. I, pp. 275 sgg., Vol. II, p. 408; R. Sohm, Kéirchenrecht 
(Leipzig, 1892), pp. 15 sgg.; P. Monceau, Histoire Litteraire de l’Afrique 
Chrétienne, depuis les Origines jusqu’a Invasion Arabe (3 vols., Paris, 1901— 
1905), Vol. II, St. Cyprien et son Temps; J. Chapman, Les Interpolations 
dans le Traité de St. Cyprien sur VUnité de VEglise in Revue Benedictine 
(Maredsous, 1902), Vol. XIX, pp. 246 sqq., 357 sqq.; Vol. XX, pp. 26 
sqq.; J. Chapman, The Interpolations in St. Cyprian’s De Unitate Ecclesiae 
in Journal of Theological Studies (London, 1904), Vol. V, pp. 634 sqq.; 
J. Chapman, Cyprian in Catholic Encyclopaedia (15 vols., New York, 1907- 
1912), Vol. IV; H. Koch, Cyprian und der rémische Primat (Leipzig, 1910); 
H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History to A.D. 313 (2 vols., London, 1912), 
Vol. II, chap. XXIV; O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (St. Louis, 1908), § 51; 
P. Batiffol, Primitive Catholicism (trans. by H. L. Brianceau, New York, 
1911), Excursus E; B. J. Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols., 
Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. I, pp. 436 ff. The life of Cyprian by his follower 
and contemporary has been edited by A. Harnack, Das Leben Cyprians von 
Pontius, die erste christliche Biograpme (Leipzig, 1913). 


95 Supra, pp. 302-304. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 325 


Cyprian, De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, 4-6, 17. Text. 
Ed. by W. Hartel, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum, III", 212-214, 226. 


4 Whoever reflects upon and examines into these things 
will feel no need of lengthy discussion and argument. 
There is easy support for faith in a brief review of the 
truth. The Lord speaks to Peter in these words: “I say 
unto thee that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will 
build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth 
shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” And again 
after his resurrection he says to him: ‘‘ Feed my sheep.” *”° 
Upon one man he builds the Church and although he grants 
to all the apostles after his resurrection an equal power and 
says: ‘As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 
Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosesoever sins ye remit, they 
shall be remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye re- 
tain, they shall be retained,” *’ yet, that he might make clear 
their unity, he established by his authority that unity at 
the beginning as if it originated in one man. Assuredly 
the rest of the apostles were equal to Peter, endowed 
with the same partnership in honor and power, but the 
beginning was made in unity, that the Church of Christ 
might be manifested to be one. This one Church the Holy 
Spirit in the person of the Lord describes in the Song of 
Songs, saying: ‘‘ My dove, my undefiled is but one. She 
is the only one of her mother, the choice one of her that 
bare her.” ** Does he who fails to uphold this unity of the 


96 John, XXI, 16, 17. This sentence is often regarded as one of the later 
interpolations. But Cyprian elsewhere couples the same two incidents in the story 
of Peter. ‘“ Even Peter, to whom the Lord committed the feeding and guarding 
of his sheep and upon whom he built and founded his Church, said that he had 
neither silver nor gold,” etc. De Habitu Virginum, to. 

87 John, XX, 21-23. 98 Canticles, VI, 8. 


326 THE SEE OF PETER 


Church believe that he upholds the faith? °° Does he who 
opposes and resists the Church trust that he is in the Church? 
When, moreover, the blessed apostle Paul teaches the same 
thing and expounds the mystery of unity, saying: ‘‘ There 
is one body and one spirit, one hope of your calling, one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.” 

5 This unity then we should strenuously uphold and 
maintain, especially we who are bishops and preside in the 
Church, that we may prove that the episcopate also is 
one and undivided. Let no one by falsehood deceive 
the brotherhood; let no one by crafty prevarication cor- 
rupt the truth of the faith! The episcopate is one and 
each bishop holds his portion of it for the whole. The 
Church also is one, although spread far and wide abroad 
into a multitude by her increasing fruitfulness, even as 
there are many rays of the sun and but one light and 
many branches of a tree and but one trunk, based upon the 
tenacious root.... 

6... Whoever is separated from the Church and 
joined to an adulteress is separated from the promises of 
the Church, nor shall he who forsakes Christ’s Church attain 
to Christ’s rewards. He is a stranger, a blasphemer, an 
enemy. He who has not the Church for his mother has God 
no more for his Father. If a man could escape who was 
outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who is 


99 Ephesians, ,IV, 4-6. This whole passage was sometime later worked over 
with interpolations to fit it for papal use. In a letter of Pelagius II to the 
Istrian bishops, written about 585, he quotes it in the following form: “ Upon one 
he builds the Church and commits to him the feeding of his sheep, and although 
to all the apostles he gives an equal power, yet he establishes one See and institutes 
by his own authority the beginning and characteristic of unity. Assuredly the 
rest also were the same as Peter, but the primacy was given to Peter that it might 
be shown that there was one Church and one See. And all are shepherds but only 
one flock is mentioned, which is fed by all the apostles in unanimous accord. Then 
does he who fails to uphold the unity of Paul believe that he upholds the faith? 
Does he who deserts the See of Peter, upon which the Church was founded, be- 
lieve that he is in the Church?” Cited in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum, III, 212. The interpolation contains the word “ cathedra,” seat or see, 
which in the original does not appear at all. Cyprian does, however, use the 
phrase “ See of Peter” in one of his letters to Cornelius. Infra, p. 379. Cf. also 
“the post of Fabianus, that is, the post of Peter.” Infra, p. 372. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 327 


outside the Church. .. . 

17... Does he think he is with Christ who opposes 
the priests of Christ? who separates himself from the fellow- 
ship of his clergy and his people? Such an one takes arms 
against the Church; he fights against the ordinance of God, 
a foe to the altar, a rebel against the sacrifice of Christ, 
faithless in the faith, sacrilegious in religion, a disobedient 
servant, an undutiful son, an enemy brother. He despises 
the bishops and forsakes the priests of God and dares to 
erect another altar, with unsanctified lips to offer another 
prayer, with false sacrifices to profane the true host of the 
Lord. 


toperoige, Lil 3" Text. Op. cit., III’, 471. 


‘Cyprian to his brother Rogatianus:*” 

. . . [Answer to a complaint of insubordination on the 
part of a deacon. | 

3 Deacons ought to remember that the Lord chose the 
apostles, that is, the bishops and rulers,’ but that after the 
Lord’s ascension into heaven, the apostles appointed deacons 
as servants of the bishopric and the Church. So, if we may 
dare to oppose God who makes the bishops, then the deacons 
may dare to oppose us who make them. 


100 The letters of Cyprian have been published at different times from dif- 
ferent manuscripts, in which they were arranged in different order. The number- 
ing, therefore, varies in the various editions. The Migne version follows an old 
French edition, in which by a printer’s oversight the number 23 was omitted alto- 
gether. The English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers corrects the Migne 
error but otherwise uses the Migne numbering. The text edited by Hartel is based 
upon a seventeenth century Oxford edition, which was taken from a manuscript 
with an entirely different principle of arrangement. We give here Hartel’s 
numbering. 

101 Rogatianus was one of the bishops in Cyprian’s province of Africa. 

101a From this and the following extract it seems clear that Cyprian thought 
of the power to bind and loose as the episcopal power, possessed in his time by 
all bishops. The Lord had given it first to Peter but later to all the apostles, who 
after the Resurrection had all exercised it. Also infra, p. 406. 


328 | THE SEE OF PETER 
Epistolae, XX XIII, 1. Text. Op. cit., 566. 


[ The letter opens with no address. It was undoubtedly 
intended for the lapsed.*” | 

1 Our Lord, whose commandment we must fear and 
obey, establishes the honorable rank of bishop and the con- 
stitution of his Church when in the gospel he speaks and > 
says to Peter: “I say unto thee that thou art Peter and 
on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt . 
bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” 
Thence have come down to us in course of time and by due 
succession the ordained office of the bishop and the consti- 
_ tution of the Church, forasmuch as the Church is founded 
upon the bishops and every act of the Church is subject to 
these rulers.“ Since then this order has been so estab- 
lished by divine decree, I am amazed that some individuals 
have had the bold effrontery to write to me and send letters 
in the name of the Church, seeing that the Church is com- 
posed of the bishop and the clergy and all who are steadfast. 
It shall not be, nor will the mercy and unconquerable power 
of the Lord suffer it, that the multitude of the lapsed should 
be called the Church, for it is written: “ God is not the God 
of the dead but of the living.” *** 


Epistolae, LXVI, 8, 10. Text. Of. cit., 732-734. 


Cyprian, called also Thascius, to his brother Florentius, 
called also Puppianus, greeting: [A sarcastic and indignant 
letter to a former member of Cyprian’s church, who has 


102 J.¢., those who had tacitly or expressly denied their faith during the perse- 
cution of Decius and who were in consequence excluded from the Church. Infra, 
Pp. 330-331. 

103 Compare this statement of the theory of apostolic succession with those 
of Irenaeus and Tertullian and note the growing legalism. 

104 Matthew, XXII, 32. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 329 


believed scandalous accusations against him and has written 
to charge him with breaking up the church. | 

8 . . . And the Lord also in the gospel, when the disci- 
ples forsook him because of his words, turned to the Twelve 
and said: ‘‘ Will ye also go away?” Peter answered him, 
saying: “* Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the word 
of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art the 
Son of the living God.” ‘There speaks Peter, on whom the 
Church was to be built, teaching and declaring in the name 
of the Church that even though a proud and wayward mul- 
titude of the disobedient may depart, yet the Church does 
not forsake Christ. And they are the Church that are a 
people united to their priest and a flock cleaving to their 
shepherd. Wherefore you should understand that the bishop 
is in the Church and the Church in the bishop and that who- 
ever is not with the bishop is not in the Church, and that 
they flatter themselves in vain who have no peace with the 
priests of God and yet creep about and imagine they are in 
Secret communion with someone else. For the Church, which 
is catholic **’ and one, is not split asunder nor divided but 
is truly bound and joined together by the cement of its 
priests, who hold fast one to another. . | 

10... J have written to you in the purity of my mind 
and conscience, confident in my Lord and God. You have 
my letter and I yours. In the day of judgment, before the 
tribunal of Christ, both shall be read aloud. 


THE VACANCY IN THE ROMAN BISHOPRIC 
(Spring of 250—Spring of 251) 
Cyprian had been bishop for hardly a year when a storm 


burst over the Church out of a quiet sky. For over fifty years, 
since the reign of Commodus, there had been no concerted or 


105 Cyprian took the word “catholic” from Tertullian and made even more 
frequent use of it. Supra, p. 286. 


330 THE SEE OF PETER 


persistent effort to suppress Christianity by force. It was still, 
as it had been since Trajan’s time, a religio illicita and it was 
always open to a magistrate or a mob in a season of excite- 
ment to call down the law to bring about the banishment or 
death of guilty individuals. But under the Syrian emperors of 
the first half of the third century, with their liberal eclecticism 
in matters of belief, the tendency was toward toleration or even 
protection. Christians pervaded every rank of society and every 
profession. It became more and more difficult to credit the old, 
horrible whispers of promiscuous sexuality and child murder, or 
to stir up popular tumults against them. 

But in the autumn of 249, a new emperor, Trajanus Decius, 
a Roman of the old-fashioned type, began his reign. The out- 
look over the Empire was disturbing. The Goths were pressing 
down upon the Danube frontier and no general seemed able to 
hold them back for long. In the East, the Parthians and the 
Persians took turns in breaking through the borders. At home, 
the long, fatal struggle was going on between the army and the 
Senate as to which should control the government of the State. 
To Decius’ mind the situation was a result of the universal apos- 
tasy from the ways of the Fathers and he did his best to turn 
back the tide. He treated the Senate with respect and defer- 
ence, set about to restore discipline in the army and within a 
few weeks after his accession, issued an edict intended to stamp 
out the unpatriotic sect that had been allowed to spread itself 
everywhere and was a constant hindrance to the recruiting of 
soldiers and the proper cultivation of loyalty to the state reli- 
gion. The edict itself has not been preserved. It apparently 
required every citizen of the Empire to sacrifice, pour libation, 
burn incense, or perform some similar act of homage at one of 
the public altars. Bishops who refused should be put to death, 
in order that the disobedient might be deprived at once of their 
leaders. Other Christians might be tortured or imprisoned, even 
starved for a while, to break down their resolution. Those who 
satisfied the magistrates by the required act of worship might 
receive a certificate of loyalty (lbellus) to shield them from 
further inquisition. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 331 


The edict was sent out broadcast and in many places the 
most prominent Christians were quickly arrested. Decius was 
especially determined to be rid of the Roman bishop and Fabi- 
anus was executed in January, 250.°°° Soon afterwards, Bishop 
Dionysius of Alexandria was rescued from the soldiers by a 
crowd of his own people. The bishop of Antioch died in prison. 
Origen was held for slow torture. In Carthage, Cyprian had 
warning of what was coming and fled from the city into con- 
cealment. Meanwhile, throngs of church members, men and 
women, small and great, were haled before the magistrates to be 
put to the test. Thousands were unable to meet it. Some 
avoided the actual commission of idolatry by procuring the 
magistrates’ certificates by underhand means, perhaps through 
pagan friends who vouched for them. Some came forward with 
no great reluctance, others pale and trembling, visibly terrified 
of the consequences, whichever course they chose. Others still 
gave way only under pressure of persuasion, imprisonment or 
pain. All of these henceforth the Church regarded as lapsed, 
shut out by their treachery from its salvation. The magistrates 
were, however, far from capturing every Christian. In each com- 
munity, there were clergy and lay members who remained unde- 
tected and met in secret, carrying on as best they could the life 
of the Church amid the general panic and demoralization. 

In a month or two, the first severity of the persecution was 
past. It was still unsafe for bishops to appear openly. At Rome, 
it would be foolhardy even to elect one. Cyprian could not 
venture back to Carthage, where he was known. But the mass 
of common Christians was no longer so harried and the rene- 
gades, now that the worst of the terror was over, began to 
bombard the churches with demands and entreaties for pardon. 
Some in their contrition voluntarily faced the magistrates again 
and atoned for their weakness by death. Others undertook 
heavy penance in the uncertain hope that some day the Church’s 
door might be open for them. Others beset the confessors 
in their prisons begging them to intercede for them. It had 
long been the custom in the churches to grant special weight 


106 Supra, pp. 313-314. 


332 THE SEE OF PETER 


to the wishes and opinions, written or spoken, of those who had 
suffered for the faith. The martyrs of Lyons had believed that 
they had a right to be heard on the Montanist question by such 
a personage as the bishop of Rome.**’ Some confessors now 
gave letters to a few of the fallen who were personally known 
to. them, recommending them to the bishop’s clemency when 
peace should be restored. Others were less cautious. One 
Lucian, in prison at Rome, issued in the name of one Paul, who 
had died, what amounted to wholesale pardons, available to any- 
one, with no prerequisite of penance.**® The church organizations 
were in grave difficulties, for there was no rule in existence that 
seemed applicable to the situation. The primitive practice had 
been to deny the possibility of forgiveness for mortal sins, such 
as adultery, idolatry or apostasy, but during the preceding fifty 
years this habit had been generally modified so as to admit of 
repentance and absolution for unchastity.°? What then could 
be done with those who had denied the Lord? Was there to be 
mercy also for them? 

To Cyprian in hiding the whole problem was peculiarly vexa- 
tious. The discontented faction in his own church had been 
quick to make capital out of his flight and had at once repre- 
sented him to Rome as a cowardly, hireling shepherd, in dis- 
graceful contrast to Fabianus, who had died at his post. The 
clergy at Rome, within a short time after the loss of their head, 
had taken up the task not only of conducting the local church 
but also of carrying on the usual correspondence with the 

107 Supra, pp. 257, 260. It was widely admitted that confessors and martyrs 
won special spiritual grace by their pains, in particular, the power to plead for 
weaker brethren before the Church and before God. See the correspondence of the 
Carthaginian Celerinus with the Roman Lucian on behalf of his fallen sisters and 
the general certificate of pardon sent out to Cyprian and other bishops by the 
Roman confessors dying of starvation. Cyprian, Epzstolae, XXI-XXIII. See, 
likewise, the action of the confessors of Alexandria and the influence of it upon 
Bishop Dionysius. Infra, p. 354, n. 150. That the appearance of this privileged 
class alongside the regular clergy, sometimes interfering with church management, 
sometimes quarreling among themselves and refusing to live by ordinary rules, 
presented a problem to orderly-minded bishops, may be inferred from Cyprian’s 
discussion of the subject in De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, cc. 20-22. Compare 
also his Epistolae, XIII and XIV, 2-3, where he suggests that clothing and money 
be allowed the confessors on condition that they show themselves amenable to 
church discipline. The satirist Lucian ridiculed the devotion of the Christians to 


their members in prison. Peregrinus, 11-13. 
108 Infra, Pp. 348, n. 126. 109 Supra, pp. 243, 296, 311. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 333 


churches abroad. As a body, they still kept ‘ watch over all 
who call on the name of the Lord.” At first, then, they wrote 
to Cyprian in hali-concealed contempt, doubtful if he were really 
to be still regarded as a bishop, sending separate letters of ad- 
vice and encouragement to the Carthaginian community. Pres- 
ently Cyprian was able to convince them that he was alive to 
his duty and their tone to him became one of comradeship, espe- 
cially after he had adopted for his own guidance the temporary 
rule which they had already promulgated to meet the emergency 
at Rome, namely, that penitents at the point of death should 
be permitted the consolation of communion but that all others 
should be required to wait until the return of peace, when their 
status might be settled in proper form by an assembly of bishops 
in council. 

But, athough Cyprian and the Roman clergy worked through 
the winter of 250-251 in harmony, there was still rebellion in the 
ranks both at Carthage and at Rome. The dissatisfied priests 
at Carthage, led by one Novatus and a deacon, Felicissimus, 
offered to restore the apostates to communion without more de- 
lay and set up a rival church organization. Their party formed a 
connection with some refractory elements at Rome and messen- 
gers passed between them, bringing letters from the confessors 
who favored indulgent treatment and an easy absolution for all 
the lapsed who asked to be forgiven. Cyprian was at length 
compelled to appoint a commission to represent him at the seat 
of his diocese, and Novatus, Felicissimus and their adherents were 
excommunicated for sedition. At the same time, as the effects 
of the strain and suspense and moral breakdown became more 
and more manifest, there arose yet another party to increase the 
discord. In Rome, the leader of this new schism was Novatian, 
one of the most serious and learned of the priests. He had at 
first acquiesced in the temporizing method of dealing with the 
lapsed, but now he and others with him could see only the mis- 
chief wrought to the fabric of the Church through the fault of 
these sinners and reverted to the position of the earliest Fathers, 
that those who had forsaken Christ in time of trial had put 
themselves forever outside the Church’s mercy. When finally, 


334 THE SEE OF PETER 


some months after Decius had left Rome to fight the Goths along 
the Danube, it seemed possible to hold an election in the city 
again and to ordain a new bishop, the church was still rent with 
the divisions between its sinners and its saints. 

A minor detail, worth noticing in the correspondence be- 
tween Cyprian and the Roman clergy, is the title with which the 
priests address a bishop, such as Cyprian, namely, papa, the 


Latin equivalent of the Greek rarzas or “ father,” the word which ~ 


in English has since become “ pope.” Tertullian had employed 
the same term, as if it were a common epithet of reverence, in 
one of his sarcastic references to a contemporary bishop of Rome, 
‘good shepherd and blessed pope.” **° The fact that Roman 


priests here apply it to a bishop of Carthage, as also that Jerome 


in the next century uses it indifferently for Damasus of Rome, 
Augustine of Hippo, Athanasius of Alexandria and the bishops of 
Jerusalem, seems to prove that it was originally in the West,™* 
as it is to this day in eastern Europe, a title for any bishop. Not 
until the pontificate of Gregory VII was it formally reserved as the 
exclusive designation of the bishop of Rome. 


On this period, see the references under Cyprian; also G. Schonach, Die 
Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Decius (Jauer, 1907); A. Harnack, The 
Letters of the Roman Clergy during the Period of the Papal Vacancy 
(volume dedicated to K. H. Weizsicker, Freiburg, 1892); P. M. Meyer, Die 
Libelli der decianischen Christenverfolgung (Berlin, 1910); C. H. Turner, 
Studies in Early Church History (London, 1912), pp. 97-131; L. Duchesne, 
Early History of the Christian Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jen- 
kins, 3 vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. I, pp. 267-272, 288-295. 


Cyprian, Epistolae, VIII. Text. Ed. by W. Hartel (Corpus 
Scriptorum Ecclestasticorum Latinorum), IT’, 485-488. 


[This letter had no title nor address but was sent from 


members of the clergy at Rome to the church in Carthage. | 


110 De Pudicitia, 13. The same treatise contains the allusion to “ bishop of 
the bishops.” Supra, p. 301. 

111 Benson in his life of Cyprian, pp. 29-31, tries to prove that the Roman 
church adopted the title from Africa. For early instances of its use see C. de F. 
Ducange, Glossariwm Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis (10 vols., Paris, 1883-1887), 
Papa. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 335 


1 We have been told by Crementius, the subdeacon, 
who came to us on a particular errand from you, that the 
blessed father Cyprian has left you and that in doing this 
he has acted rightly, because he is a prominent person and 
a struggle is impending, which God has allowed in the world 
in order to fight with his servants against the adversary. 
He wills also to show to angels and men by this conflict 
that the victor shall be crowned but that the vanquished 
shall receive for himself the doom that he has pronounced 
upon us. Whereas, then, it devolves upon us, who are 
clearly set in charge in place of the shepherd, to keep watch 
over the flock, it will be said to us if we prove neglectful, 
as it was said to our predecessors, who also had been set in 
charge and were negligent, that we have not sought that 
which was lost nor restored the wanderer nor bound up that 
which was broken, but have drunk their milk and clothed 
ourselves with their wool." Moreover, the Lord himself, 
fulfilling what was written in the law and the prophets, 
instructs us, saying: ‘I am the good shepherd, who lay 
down my life for the sheep. But the hireling, whose own 
the sheep are not, when he seeth the wolf coming, leaveth 
the sheep and fleeth and the wolf scattered them.” *** To 
Simon too he says: “ Lovest thou me?” He answered: 
“T love thee.” He saith unto him: “ Feed my sheep!” *“ 
We know that these words were occasioned by the fact that 
he himself was leaving them, and the other disciples did as 
Simon did. 

2 We are anxious, therefore, beloved brethren, that you 
should not prove hirelings but good shepherds, for you know 
that if you do not urge our brethren to stand steadfast in 
the faith there is grave and threatening danger that the 
brotherhood may rush headlong into idolatry and so be 


112 Ezekiel, XXXIV, 3, 4. 

113 John, X, 11-12, 15. Here and again later there seems to be some reflection 
intended upon the conduct of Cyprian in going into hiding. 

114 John, XXI, 15-17. 


336 THE SEE OF PETER 


absolutely destroyed. Nor is it by words only that we 
exhort you to such a course but, as you will be able to 
ascertain from the many who go to you from us, we our- 
selves both have so acted and still do, by God’s help, in the 
face of grave uncertainty and worldly peril. For we keep 
before our eyes the fear of God and eternal punishment 
rather than the fear of men and shortlived pain and do not 
abandon the brethren but encourage them to stand firmly 
in the faith and be ready to depart with the Lord. We 
have even called back some who were stepping up to perform 
the deed which they were ordered to do.” The church 
stands strong in the faith, notwithstanding that some have 
been driven by pure terror to fall, some persons of eminence, 
others overwhelmed by dread of man. Even these, however, 
we have not deserted, although they have separated them- 
selves from us, but have admonished them and do admonish 
them to repent, if in any way they may obtain pardon from 
him who is able to grant it, for fear that if we should forsake 
them they might become worse. 

3 You see then, brethren, that you also ought to act in 
the same way, so that even those who have fallen may 
recover themselves through your exhortations and if they 
are again arrested, may confess and so make amends for 
their previous fatlure. And there are other duties incum- 
bent on you, of which likewise we must make mention. For 
example, if any who have fallen during this time of trial are 
taken with illness and repent of what they have done and 
desire communion, you should by all means grant it them. 
Or if you have widows or bedridden sick who are unable to 
maintain themselves, or members in prison or excluded from 
their own houses, these ought everyone to have some person 
to care for them. Furthermore, catechumens who are ill 
ought not to find themselves deluded and left without help. 
And, — most important of all, — if the bodies of the martyrs 

115 J.¢., going up to perform the required deed of worship at a pagan altar. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 337 


and others be not buried, those whose business it is to per- 
form this office are running into serious danger. Whoever of 
you fulfils this duty on any occasion we are sure that he is 
counted a good servant, one who has been faithful in least 
and will be appointed ruler over ten cities..*° May God 
who gives all things to them that hope in him, grant us that 
we may all be found doing these works! 

The brethren who are in chains greet you, as do the 
priests and the whole church, which also with deepest con- 
cern keeps watch itself over all who call on the name of the 
Lord.”’ And we beseech you too in your turn to have us 
in remembrance. We wish also to tell you that Bassianus 
has reached us. We ask you, who have the zeal of God, 
to forward a copy of this letter to whomever you can, as 
opportunity may arise, or to make your own occasion and 
send a messenger, that they may stand firm and immovable 
in the faith. We bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily 
farewell, 


Ibid., Epistolae, IX. Text. Op. cit., 488-4809. 


1 Cyprian to his brethren, the priests and deacons at 
Rome, greeting.’ 

While the report of the death of my excellent colleague 
was still unconfirmed among us, my beloved brethren, and 
our minds were perplexed and doubtful, I received the letter 
sent to me from you by Crementius, the subdeacon, in which 
his glorious end was fully described, and I rejoiced greatly 
that so noble a consummation had suitably closed his up- 


116 Luke, XIX, 17. 

117 The Roman church had not yet, apparently, lost its corporate sense of 
responsibility for the welfare of the whole Christian brotherhood. That responsi- 
bility had not yet become the monopoly of the bishop. 

118 This letter was written by Cyprian to acknowledge the formal notification 
that had reached him from the Roman clergy of the death by martyrdom of their 
bishop, Fabianus, January, 250. The text of the notification has not been preserved. 
He also returned in this letter a copy of Letter VIII, which had fallen into his 
hands and which had evidently never been intended for his eyes. He disposes of 
this by presuming it to be a forgery. 


338 THE SEE OF PETER 


right administration. In this connection also I warmly 
congratulate you for honoring his memory with a testimony 
so public and distinguished that by means of it we are in- 
formed not only of what is splendid for you in the memory 
of your bishop but also of what affords us a pattern of faith 
and virtue. For just as a bishop’s fall is something that 
precipitates the fall of his followers, so, on the other hand, 
it is serviceable and helpful when a bishop by the strength | 
of his faith stands forth to the brethren as a pattern for 
their imitation. 

2 I have read another letter in which neither the persons 
who wrote it nor the persons to whom it was written were 
clearly named. Inasmuch as in that letter both the hand- 
writing and the contents and even the paper itself suggested 
to me that something had been cut out or altered from the 
original, I am sending you back the actual document, that 
you may determine whether it is the very same that you gave 
to the subdeacon Crementius to bring. For it is a solemn 
matter if the true text of a letter of the clergy has been cor- 
rupted by any forgery or trick. In order, then, that we may 
be sure, do you ascertain whether the writing and subscrip- 
tion are yours and send me word what is the truth. 

I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XX. Text. Op. cit., 527-520. 


1 Cyprian to his brethren, the priests and deacons at 
Rome, greeting.” 

I have discovered, beloved brethren, that what we have 
done and are doing here has been reported to you in a some- 
what distorted and untruthful fashion and have, therefore, 
thought it essential to write this letter to you, in order to 
furnish you with an account of our activities and rulings 


119 This letter was written by Cyprian in an effort to get recognition from 
Rome as being still bishop of Carthage, even in absentia. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 339 


and watchful care. For, as the commands of the Lord bid 
us do, at the first outbreak of the disturbance, after my 
people had repeatedly demanded it with violence and clamor, 
I left them for a while, thinking less of my own safety than 
of the public peace of the brethren and fearing that my 
unintimidated presence with them would aggravate the 
trouble that had begun. But though absent in body, I 
have not failed them in spirit or deed or counsel but have 
obeyed the precepts of the Lord and guided our brethren, 
as far as lay within my poor powers. 

2 And what I have done these thirteen letters which I 
have sent out at various times and which I am forwarding 
to you will reveal to you. In them I have not spared advice 
to the clergy nor encouragement to the confessors nor re- 
buke, when it was needed, to the outcasts nor appeals and 
exhortations to the whole brotherhood that they should 
entreat the mercy of God, as far as with the Lord’s help 
my poor abilities could reach them, in accordance with the 
Jaw of faith and the fear of God... . 

3 But afterwards, when some of the lapsed, whether of 
their own accord or at the suggestion of someone else, burst 
out with a daring demand, as if trying to extort by violent 
onslaught the peace that had been promised them by the 
martyrs and confessors, I wrote two letters to my clergy 
on this subject as well and gave orders to have them read 
to them, so as to moderate by some means for a while the 
turbulence of those people. I said that persons who had 
obtained a letter from the martyrs and were on the point 
of death might make confession and receive the laying on 
of hands for repentance and so be committed to the Lord 
in the peace which the martyrs had promised them. Nor in 
this was I issuing a new law or rashly constituting myself 
a lawgiver. But it seemed to me desirable both that respect 
should be paid to the martyrs and that the vehemence of 
those who were aiming to overturn everything should be 


340 THE SEE OF PETER 


restrained. And, besides, I had read your letter which you 
lately wrote to my clergy by the subdeacon Crementius, to 
the effect that consideration might be shown to those who 
after their fall were taken with an illness and penitently 
asked for communion.” I thought that I ought to stand 
by your judgment, lest our proceedings, which should be 
alike and harmonious in everything, might in some respect 
betray disagreement. The cases of the others, even of those 
who had secured letters from martyrs, I ordered postponed 
entirely and reserved until my return, so that when the Lord 
has given us peace, a number of us bishops may meet to- 
gether and arrange and reorganize everything, inigrne 
you likewise of our deliberations. 
I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XXVII. Op. cit, 540-544. 


Cyprian to his brethren, the priests and deacons at 
Rome, greeting. 

[A letter of remonstrance against the conduct of Lu- 
cian ** and other imprisoned Roman confessors, who have 
sent out broad, general pardons to the lapsed in their own 
names as also in the name of Paul, a recent martyr, pointing 
out the impossibility of maintaining order in Africa, when 
bishops are everywhere besieged by lapsed who insist upon 
instant restoration to full membership on the ground of 
pardons from these confessors. The correspondence which 
Cyprian and members of his church have had on the sub- 
ject is enclosed. Confessors forget that “‘ martyrs do not 
make the gospel but martyrs themselves are made by the 
gospel.” | | 


120 The Roman clergy had perhaps written a third letter, now lost, in which 
they still ignored Cyprian and advised the Carthaginian clergy again of the policy 
they had adopted in their treatment of the lapsed who were in peril of dying un- 
reconciled and unforgiven. Can Cyprian be alluding to this letter when he suggests 
in the first sentences of this paragraph that outside influences might have stirred 
up the lapsed at Carthage? 121 Infra, p. 345, n. 126. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 341 


4... But at the opportune moment arrived your letter 
written to my clergy, which I received, as also that which 
the blessed confessors, Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus and 
the rest,’ sent to Saturninus, Aurelius and the others, 
which contained the full vigor of the gospel and the robust 
discipline of the law of the Lord. Your words have so much 
assisted us in our struggle here and in our efforts to resist 
with all the power of our faith the onslaught of discontent 
that, by God’s help, the end will soon arrive. For even be- 
fore the letter which I last sent you had reached you, you in- 
formed me that your judgment in accordance with the gospel 
law firmly and unanimously concurred with mine. 

I bid you, brethren, beloved and longed for, ever heartily 
farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XXX. Text. Op. cit., 549-556. 


The priests and deacons at Rome to Pope Cyprian, 
greeting. 

1 A soul conscious of its own rectitude, supported by 
the strength of the gospel rule and a truthful witness to 
itself of the laws of heaven is ofttime content to have God 
as its only judge and neither craves the praise nor dreads 
the censure of anyone beside. Yet they who know that 
their consciences submit to God as their judge, but who 
long to have their deeds approved also by their brethren 
deserve to receive this double commendation. Such, brother 
Cyprian, has, not unnaturally, been your attitude, for you 
have wished to make us not your judges so much as par- 
ticipants in your piety and your many industrious counsels, 
that we ourselves might, as we approve your acts, win praise 

122 The party of Moyses, Maximus and others among the Roman confessors 
seems to have tried to counteract the influence of Lucian and his friends and to 
have urged that confessors and martyrs should not interfere with the discipline of 


the regular church organization. Cyprian wrote a letter of gratitude to them. 
Epistolae, XXVIII. 


342 THE SEE OF PETER 


for them along with you and become coheirs of your good 
counsels through being supporters of them. .. . 

2... [Approval of Cyprian’s policy of maintaining 
discipline and a steady hand on the helm.| Nor has this de- 
cision been a result of recent reflection on our part nor has 
the help we have just furnished against wrongdoers been 
unprecedented, but from of old this strictness has been re- 
corded of us, from of old this faith and from of old this 
discipline. For the apostle would not have pronounced his 
great eulogy upon us in the words, “ for your faith is pro- 
claimed in all the world,” ** if even at that time our vigor 
had not put strength into the roots of faith. After that 
eulogy and that glory, for us to degenerate would be the 
worst of crimes. .. . 

4 Moreover, you have also received letters of the same 
tenor as ours from those confessors who are still for the 
steadfastness of their confession confined here in prison and 
have been once already gloriously crowned by faith in con- 
fession during the gospel conflict. In their letters they 
have upheld the severity of the gospel rule and for shame 
of the church have denounced that unwarranted petition, 
fearing that if they took the easy course they would not 
find it easy to restore the ruins of the gospel rule... . 

5 In this connection, we must and do express to you 
our deep and heartfelt gratitude, because by your letters 
you have lightened the gloom of their prison,” because, 
as far as you could have access to them, you have visited 
them, because with your encouraging messages you have 
put new life into their hearts, strong as they were through 
their own faith and confession, because by dwelling upon 
their felicity in admiring words you have kindled them to 
yearn far more ardently for the glory of heaven, because 


123 Romans, I, 8. 

124 J.e., of course, for quick and easy restoration of the lapsed. 

125 See, for an example, Cyprian’s letter to the Roman confessors on their 
completion of one year of imprisonment. Letter XXXVII. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 343 


you have given fresh impulse to their fervor, because, as 
we believe and hope, by the power of your speech you have 
fortified them for future victory, so that, even though this 
might all perhaps have come about from their own faith in 
confessing, and from the goodness of God, they are still to 
some extent your debtors in their martyrdom. But, — to re- 
turn to the subject from which we seem to have digressed, — 
you will find appended the letters we have sent to Sicily also. 
However, it is peculiarly necessary for us to postpone action, 
because since the death of Fabianus of most noble memory 
no bishop has yet, owing to the perils of the situation and 
the times, been ordained to bring order into all these matters 
and to treat the problem of the lapsed with authority and 
good counsel. Yet, as regards this weighty business, we 
have reached the conclusion that you yourself have advo- 
cated, namely, that first the peace of the Church must be 
restored and then a council assembled of bishops, priests, 
deacons, and confessors, as well as the steadfast laity, and 
in this way the question of the lapsed be taken up for settle- 
ment. For it seems to us wrong and invidious and unfair 
not to investigate in a general gathering the offense that 
has been so generally committed nor to pronounce sentence 
together, when so grave a guilt is known to be so widely 
spread. For an ordinance cannot have force which has not 
openly received the general assent. The whole world is now 
almost everywhere laid waste and the remnants and ruins 
of what has been overthrown lie all about us. For that 
reason it seems to us that there should be as thorough a 
searching out of counsel as the sin itself is widespread. . . . 

6 and 7 [They urge the whole Church to prayer and 
the lapsed to patience, repentance and humility, while wait- 
ing for relief. | 

8 We here have long been trying to preserve this mod- 
eration of attitude, both we ourselves, who are many, and 
some of the bishops who are near neighbors to us, and others 


344 THE SEE OF PETER 


whom the heat of the persecution has driven here from dis- 
tant provinces, but we have thought that we ought not to 
initiate any new measures until our bishop is appointed. We > 
have, however, felt it needful to temper a little our treatment 
of the lapsed. For although, during this interval of expec- 
tation and waiting for a bishop to be given us by God, the 
cases of those who can endure the delay should be kept in 
suspense, those whose lives are fast approaching their end 
and who cannot bear delay, provided they repent and declare 
often their detestation of their sins and grieve with tears and 
sobs and weeping and display the signs of a heart truly 
contrite, if humanly speaking there is no likelihood that 
they will live, then at the last, carefully and mercifully, they 
should receive relief. God himself knows what he will do 
with such as these and how he will determine the weight of 
his judgment. We are anxious both that the unscrupulous 
should not praise us for weakness and leniency and that true 
penitents should not accuse us of obdurate cruelty. We bid 
you, most blessed and glorious pope, ever farewell in the 
Lord and do you remember us. ! 


Ibid., Epistolae, XXXI. Text. Op. cit., 557-564. 


Moyses and Maximus, priests, and Nicostratus, Rufinus 
and the other confessors with them to Pope Cyprian, 
greeting. 

[ Fervent thanks for Cyprian’s letters and encouragement 
and a request for his prayers. Approval of his care for his 
bishopric, especially his treatment of the lapsed. | 


Ibid., Epistolae, XXXII. Text. Op. cit., 565. 


[Cyprian sends copies of both preceding letters to the 
priests and deacons of his own church, with instructions 
that they be generally read and that copies be made for 
bishops, priests or deacons of other churches who may visit 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 345 


Carthage and that free opportunity be afforded to anyone 
else who wishes to make a copy. | 


Ibid., Epistolae, XXXV. Text. Op. cit., 571-572. 


Cyprian to his brethren, the priests and deacons at 
Rome, greeting. 

Both our mutual love and our intelligence demand, be- 
loved brethren, that I should conceal from your knowledge 
nothing which occurs among us, in order that we may 
plan in common for the salutary administration of the 
Church. . . . And after I had written you the letter which 
I sent by our brothers, Saturus, the reader, and Optatus, the 
subdeacon, some of the lapsed, who balk at penance and at 
making atonement to God, wrote me a letter in an audacious 
conspiracy, not to beg for peace to be given them but to 
claim it, as if it had already been given. For they insist 
that Paul gave peace to everyone,’ as you will read in 
their letter, of which I forward you a copy and with it the 
brief reply I promptly wrote them. Also, that you may 
know what sort of letter I then wrote to my clergy, I send 
you a copy of it as well. And if, after all, this effrontery 
is not subdued either by my letters or by yours and does 
not yield to proper methods, we shall take such proceedings 
as the Lord in his gospel bade us take. I bid you, beloved 
brethren, ever heartily farewell. Farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XXXVI. Text. Op. cit., 572-575. 


The priests and deacons at Rome to Pope Cyprian, 
greeting. 

1 When, beloved brother, we had read your letter which 

126 For previous mention of Paul vide supra, p. 340. Lucian’s story was to 
the effect that Paul, just before his death, had said to him: “ Lucian, in the 
presence of Christ I bid you, if after my departure anyone asks you for peace, 


give it in my name.” Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vol. III, 
Pp. 534. 


3.46 THE SEE OF PETER 


you sent by Fortunatus, the subdeacon,’*’ we were smitten 
with a double sorrow and distressed with a twofold grief, 
because there has been no respite granted you in the heavy 
stress of persecution and because the unreasonable dissatis- 
faction of the lapsed brethren has evidently been pushed to 
dangerous recklessness of expression. But although these 
things which we have mentioned are a severe affliction to 
us and to our spirit, yet the vigor and severity that you 
have displayed, in accordance with the gospel rule, lighten 
the oppressive burden of our grief, inasmuch as you are 
righteously restraining these persons’ wickedness and by 
exhortations to repentance are pointing out the lawful way 
of salvation. . . . [The inconsistency of those martyrs who: 
believe that they themselves would forfeit salvation by sac- 
rificing and so will die rather than yield and who yet promise 
salvation to others who have sacrificed. Most martyrs refer 
these sinners to their bishop and the gospel law. Encourage- 
ment to Cyprian to continue his efforts. | | 

3... For we do not think that without the instigation 
of certain persons ** they would all have dared to assert so 
rudely their claim to peace. We know the faith of the 
Carthaginian church, we know her training, we know her 
humility. Wherefore we have wondered to hear some rather 
harsh reports of you by letter,’ since we have often wit- 
nessed your mutual love and charity in numerous instances 
of reciprocal affection toward each other. Now, certainly, 
it is time that the sinners repent, that they prove their — 
remorse for their fall, that they show reverence and exhibit 
humility... . 

4 As for Privatus of Lambaesis,*° you have acted as 


127 Je, probably, Letter XXXV. 

128 A cautious reference undoubtedly to the party of lenient confessors at 
Rome, represented by Lucian and his friends. Supra, pp. 340, 345. 

129 The reading here is corrupt, and the meaning is obviously not that of the 
original. The Roman clergy were not finding fault with Cyprian at this juncture. 

130 Lambaesis was the military capital of the province of Numidia. Privatus 
apparently headed a recalcitrant party there. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 347 


you usually do in endeavoring to inform us of the situation 
as a cause for anxiety. For it becomes us all to keep watch 
over the body of the whole Church, whose members are 
scattered through all the various provinces. But even be- 
fore your letter came, the fraud of that crafty man had 
been brought to our attention. For already one Futurus, 
a standard bearer for Privatus, had arrived among us from 
the same cohort of iniquity and had attempted by guile to 
procure a letter from us, but we did not fail to discover who 
he was nor did he obtain the letter that he wanted. We 
bid you ever farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XLIII. Text. Op. cit., 590-597. 


Cyprian to all his people, greeting.*** 

{A warning against dealings of any kind with Felicissi- 
mus and five other priests, who have communicated with the 
lapsed. | 

3... . Now again is the same ruinous idea being spread 
about by the five priests who have joined Felicissimus to the 
destruction of salvation, namely, that God should not be 
entreated, that he who has denied Christ should not implore 
the Christ whom he has denied, that penance after the guilt 
of sin may be dispensed with and no atonement made to the 
Lord through the Lord’s bishops and priests, but that the 
Lord’s priests should be forsaken and a new tradition of 
sacrilegious institution be set up in violation of the gospel 
rule. And although it has once been decided both by us 
and by the confessors and clergy in the city “*’ as well as 
by all the bishops in our province and across the sea*” 
that no new measures should be taken in the matter of the 
lapsed until we all assemble together and compare judg- 


131 This letter was written in March, 251, just before Cyprian emerged from 
exile, when persecution had, for the time being, almost ceased. 

182 Je, those who remained in Carthage. 

183 At Rome. 


348 THE SEE OF PETER 


ments and fix upon a sentence suited to discipline and mercy, 
they would rebel against this our conclusion and overthrow 
by faction and conspiracy all the authority and power of the 
priesthood. ... | 

5... They now offer peace who themselves have no 
peace. They who themselves have deserted the Church are 
preventing the Church from bringing back and recalling the 
lapsed. There is one God and one Christ and one Church 
and one seat of office,"** established upon Peter by the word 
of the Lord. Another altar cannot be erected nor a new 
priesthood created beside the one altar and the one priest- 
hood. ... 

7... This is the last and final temptation of this per-° 
_ secution and this too, with the Lord’s aid, will quickly pass, 
so that I may be present with you and my colleagues after 
Easter. In the assemblage we shall be able to arrange and 
make clear what is to be done in accordance with your will 
and the general judgment of us all, as we once decided. . . . 


CoRNELIUS 
(251-253) 


In the spring of 251, while Decius was engrossed in the 
campaign against the Goths among the Balkans, the Roman 
community ventured to elect a new bishop. ‘The election was 
a signal for all parties to put out their strength. The group that 
stood for quick and easy restoration of the renegades seems, 
however, to have become by this time discredited at Rome and 
was speedily quelled. The real issue lay between the middle 
party, that favored restoration to communion, though not to 
office, after a considerable period of penance and satisfactory 
evidences of contrition, and the austerer party, known as Cathari 
or Puritans, who insisted upon absolute adherence to the primi- 
tive rule, that those who had denied Christ, whether explicitly or 


134 The Latin word is “cathedra.” It seems clear from the context that 
Cyprian is referring to the episcopal office. Cf. supra, pp. 326 and n. 99, 329. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 349 


tacitly, before the world could never again be counted among 
his flock. A majority of the clergy, touched by the wretchedness 
of many of the outcasts, voted finally for Cornelius, a priest who 
had not hitherto made himself conspicuous **° but who was known 
as a pious man of moderate views who had shown some sympathy 
for the lapsed and would support a policy of prudent reintegra- 
tion. To the Puritans such a compromise seemed to mark the 
Roman church as apostate. It was unthinkable that they should 
remain members of a body that offered Christ again to those 
faithless and cowardly disciples who had once forsaken him for 
demons. They solemnly withdrew from the assembly, declared 
themselves the only true and apostolic church and elected Nova- 
tian, a man of far greater learning and distinction than Cor- 
nelius,*® as their bishop. Among their number were some of 
the confessors to whom Cyprian had written the previous year, 
praising them for upholding the strictness of the gospel law.**” 
Each organization at once dispatched notice of its action to 
the other churches of the Empire, asking for recognition and for 
the establishment of customary relations with its own candidate. 
To Cyprian in Carthage came from Cornelius merely a formal 
letter of notification of election, but from the Novatianists a 
personal delegation, headed by the priest Maximus, with full 
accounts of the whole affair and a multitude of reasons to justify 
their secession. They probably hoped that Cyprian’s well-known 
respect for tradition would range him on their side against 
Cornelius and the threatened relaxation of discipline. If he and 
the church of Carthage would acknowledge Novatian, it would 
be a serious blow to Cornelius’ standing and prospects. The 
letters and the messengers reached Cyprian in the midst of the 
council of African bishops and clergy which he had convened 
upon his reappearance in Carthage. Cornelius’ letter was regular 
in form and reported what professed to be a perfectly regular 
election.- Therefore, Cyprian read it to his council. The lengthy 


185 Cyprian finds it necessary, in writing of the Roman situation, to explain 
who Cornelius is and what is his reputation. Infra, p. 371. 

136 An English translation of Novatian’s extant works is in Ante Nicene 
Fathers, Vol. V, pp. 611 sqqg. He was probably the most scholarly theologian of 
his generation. | 

187 Supra, p. 341 and n. 123, 


350 THE SEE OF PETER 


communication from Novatian reported an admitted irregularity 
and was polemic in style. It offended Cyprian’s taste for legal 
and proper procedure. He did not read it to his clergy but 
merely stated the fact of the second election and tried in vain to 
prevent the Novatianist deputation from gaining entrance to the 
council hall and arguing their case in person before the interested 
African bishops. However, their charges against Cornelius of 
contaminating intercourse with apostates and against the methods 
by which his election had been secured sounded too grave to be 
dismissed without investigation. The council at last decided to 
delay recognition of either bishop until two of its number, Cal- 
donius and Fortunatus, could visit Rome and collect reliable and 
unbiassed information, and also exert their utmost influence to 
heal the division and bring the opposing parties together again. 
Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria was writing directly to Novatian, 
urging him to endure everything rather than incur the guilt of 
creating a breach in the unity of the Church.**® 

But before Caldonius and Fortunatus could return, came 
letters from other clergy who had been in Rome during the elec- 
tion and who confirmed the legitimacy of Cornelius’ position. 
Not long afterwards, two African eyewitnesses, Pompey and 
Stephen, arrived in Carthage. Their report, to the effect that the 
priest Novatus and others of Cyprian’s troublesome opponents 
among the Carthaginian clergy during the previous year were 
now in Rome and figuring prominently among the Novatianists, 
doubtless helped Cyprian to classify the whole movement as an 
indefensible outbreak of wilful insubordination. Moreover, in 
his own case humanity and practical sense had already prevailed 
over zeal for traditional discipline. Under his presidency, the 


138 Eusebius gives the text of Dionysius’ cogent letter. “ Dionysius to his 
brother Novatus [sic] greeting. If, as you say, you have been elevated against 
your will, you will prove it by voluntarily retiring. For it were better to suffer 
anything than to divide asunder the Church of God. Indeed, martyrdom for re- 
sisting division would be no less glorious than martyrdom for refusing to worship 
idols. Nay, to me it seems even more glorious. For in one case, a man is a martyr 
for the sake of his own individual soul; in the other, for the sake of the whole 
Church. If now you induce or compel the brethren to return to harmony, your 
merit will be greater than your error and the latter will be condoned while the 
former is applauded. But if you cannot prevail upon the unruly, at least save 
your own soul! I bid you farewell, and keep the peace in the Lord.” Historia 


Ecclesiastica, VI, 45. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 351 


Carthaginian council, without waiting for definite action to be 
taken elsewhere, had agreed upon a concession to mercy for 
the fallen in Africa and had planned out a scheme of penance 
and gradual restitution to communion. Such being the situation, 
Cyprian hesitated no longer but wrote to Cornelius, explaining 
fully the causes of his own delay and that of his African col- 
leagues and protesting his abhorrence for the schismatics. He 
wrote also to his friends among the Roman confessors, urgently 
advising them to make their peace with the lawful episcopate,**® 
and to the bishops in Africa who still remained unconvinced. 
Cornelius, on his part, called a council of the bishops of Italy 
to excommunicate Novatian, Novatus and their adherents and 
to adopt a plan of penance similar to that drawn up at Carthage. 
The church of Egypt was following the same course in a synod 
at Alexandria. No single general council of the Church was held 
but three of the great metropolitan sees were thus in substantial 
accord.**° 
The process of modifying the early austere theories regarding 
church membership and the purpose of the rite of baptism, as 
also the compensatory process of increasing the scope of the sac- 
rament of penance, had been begun, as we have seen, at Rome in 
the second century and carried further by Bishop Callistus’ 
decree that Christians might have forgiveness for sins of the 
flesh.‘** They both were now pushed to their logical outcome by 
the legislation of these three provincial councils, that atonement 
might be made in the Church for the deadly spiritual sin of 
apostasy. Nevertheless, Novatian, who like Hippolytus before 
him headed a serious minority bent upon unfaltering observ- 
ance of the stricter tradition, found groups of conscientious con- 
servatives all over the Empire. Fabius, the patriarch of Antioch, 
-was inclined to take his side and other bishops in Asia wavered. 
Cornelius’ brief pontificate marks, therefore, one of the crises 
in the history of ecclesiastical practice and dogma. It is mem- 
- 139 Dionysius of Alexandria wrote also to the Roman confessors, both before 
and after their reconciliation with Cornelius, and to the whole Roman church. 


Eusebius, op. cit., VI. 46. Infra, p. 386, n. 192. j 
140 Qn the need of councils that would be representative of the Church at large, 


vide supra, Pp. 343. 
141 Supra, pp. 243, 310. Cf. infra, p. 701. 


352 THE SEE OF PETER 


orable also to the hard-pressed historian because of the compara- 
tive wealth of our information about it, derived not only from 
the letters written to or about Cornelius by Cyprian but also 
from three letters from Cornelius’ own pen, the first indubitable 
utterances of a Roman bishop to be preserved since the letter 
of Clement. His two letters to Cyprian relate the outcome of 
the Novatianist movement among the Roman confessors. His 
long one to Fabius of Antioch, from which Eusebius takes ex- 
tracts, is an argument against the recognition of Novatian, based 
upon the latter’s alleged scandalous misbehavior, the fraud and 
irregularity of his election and the size and strength of the 
organization behind Cornelius. A reading of these letters does 
not enhance one’s impression of Cornelius’ own mentality. They 
have neither the calm assurance and dignity of the letters sent 
out by the college of Roman priests before his election nor the 
clarity and honest vigor of Cyprian’s. Cornelius seems hot- 
headed and excitable, easily cast down or elated or made sharp 
and suspicious. He argues by personalities rather than by prin- 
ciples. Cyprian is presently obliged to urge him not to be upset 
by fears of misrepresentation nor to believe too readily false 
calumnies against his friends.“*? He could indeed summon the 
courage to assume the dangerous post of the bishopric and, again, 
to make his Christian confession before the magistrates but he 
had neither the nervous balance nor the intellectual calibre to 
be the inspiration of his church. Men still kept and read the 


letters of Cyprian and Dionysius for their steady guidance and | 


authoritative voice.*** } 


The priceless passages in Cornelius’ letters are those in which 
he describes to Fabius the contest with Novatian and gives the 
single piece of exact statistics we possess for the church in Rome 
before the fourth century. From his account of the part played 
by Italian bishops in installing Novatian and of his own measures 
of retaliation we gather that the Roman bishop claimed by this 
time the right as metropolitan to ordain other Italian bishops, 
at least in the neighboring districts of the peninsula, to depose 


142 Infra, pp. 374 ff. 
143 Cornelius himself read aloud to his church the letters he received from 
Cyprian. Infra, p. 381. 


ats =e ee ee 
a i SN a i 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 353 


for breach of order and even to fill single-handed the places of 
any so deposed. On the other hand, it had become customary 
for the nearest Italian bishops to meet at Rome to confirm the 
election of a new Roman bishop and to consecrate him by the 
laying on of hands. Sixteen helped to ordain Cornelius.*** Sixty 
bishops from all over Italy assembled for his synod, a number 
which, when absentees and Novatianists are taken into calcula- 
tion, indicates something like one hundred bishops altogether in 
central and southern Italy. 

As for the church in the capital, we now hear that its clergy 
has become divided into a hierarchy of seven ranks, five inferior 
orders having been created below the diaconate. With the bishop 
they form a body of one hundred and fifty-five men. The forty- 
six priests denote, perhaps, an equal number of churches or 
separate congregations.**® The fifteen hundred widows and other 
dependents imply a normal supporting membership of from thirty 
to forty thousand, that is from three to four per cent of the total 
population of the city.**° The Novatianists, who had withdrawn, 
probably took their own poor with them. Before their secession 
the church must have been larger by, at least, several thousands 
or their going would never have occasioned so much disturbance. 
Modern scholars, calculating from the known cost of keeping a 
slave and the price of a bushel of wheat in the third century, have 
reckoned that the Roman church was spending for the main- 
tenance of its clergy and needy between $25,000 and $50,000 
yearly.**” With that in mind one can appreciate better the 

144 This number is given in Cyprian’s letter, LV. Infra, p. 374. 

145 Optatus of Mileve writes, sometime about the year 370, that there are 
over forty basilicas at Rome. De Schismate Donatistarum, II, 4. 

146 Chrysostom says, about 380, that at Antioch three thousand Christians 
are receiving relief out of a church membership of over one hundred thousand. 
Opp. VII, 658, 810. Quoted by Harnack, in his discussion of this passage. The 
Expansion of Christianity, 2nd ed., Vol. II, p. 248. See also Vol. I, p. 157. If 
that proportion held good for Rome in 252, it would argue a membership of 
about fifty thousand. It seems reasonable, however, to suppose that third century 
Rome was more generous than fourth century Antioch and also that the relief roll 
was especially long just after a persecution. Gibbon, Déllinger, Friedlander, etc., 
put the church at fifty thousand. Harnack reduces it to thirty. The population 
of the city is estimated at about nine hundred thousand. 

147 The Carthaginian church, during the same year, raised 100,000 sesterces, 
$5,000, as a special fund for the ransom of Christians in Numidia, carried off by 


bandit raiders, and then offered to send more if it were needed. Cyprian, Epis- 
tolae, LXII. 


354 THE SEE OF PETER 


sentiment that Cyprian attributes to Decius, that he would rather 
hear of a new rival for the throne than a new bishop in Rome. 
By the end of 251, Decius was dead, killed by the Goths in 
the Dobrudja. Gallus, his successor, had no strong religious 
convictions and at first forbore to press the edicts against the 
Christians. The year of 252 was, therefore, one of temporary 
respite. But towards autumn, an epidemic broke out and spread 
through the provinces, causing much illness and death. Many 
were convinced that the gods were taking vengeance for the slack- 
ness with which their honor was being upheld and there were 
in some places sharp outbursts of popular prejudice and panic. 
Cyprian speaks of a day when the crowd in the circus at Carthage 
suddenly clamored a second time for him to be thrown to the 
lions.*** Early in 253, Gallus was prevailed upon to set the 
magistrates again at crushing out disloyalty. 3 
Meanwhile, the leading bishops had been spending their 
energies on efforts to rally and unite the Christian forces every- 
where, as far as they could be reached, had been filling the 
positions of local clergy who had apostatized or had refused to 
accept the new rules for restoration of the lapsed and had been 
directing the course of penitential discipline in their own churches. 
The attitude of Fabius of Antioch and other Asiatic prelates 
continued to produce uneasiness. Cornelius wrote to Fabius at 
least three times,’*® feverishly accusing Novatian of cowardice, 
trickery, greed and unscrupulousness of every description. As 


far as we can tell from the extracts, he merely attempted per-— 


suasion and assumed no tone of threatening or command. He 
could not display the Petrine authority to one who questioned his 
right to possess it and, in any case, Cornelius was no second 
Victor. Both Cyprian and Dionysius of Alexandria wrote also 
to Fabius.*°° At the beginning of 253, Dionysius informed 


148 Infra, p. 377. 

149 Eusebius mentions three letters that he had seen and one from Cornelius 
to Dionysius on the same subject. Infra, pp. 382, 386. Historia Ecclesiastica, V1, 
46, I-3. 

150 The difference in temper between Dionysius and Cornelius is striking. 
The former refrains from becoming violently controversial, but makes a moving 
appeal to Fabius’ veneration for the martyrs. ‘‘ These saintly martyrs from our 
midst, who now sit with Christ, share in his kingdom, participate in his counsel 
and judge together with him, received some of the brethren who had fallen and 


a a a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 355 


Cornelius that he had been invited by the bishops of several 
eastern provinces, headed by Helenus of Tarsus, Firmilian of 
Caesarea in Cappadocia and Theoctistus of Caesarea in Palestine, 
to meet at a synod at Antioch, to decide finally whether or not 
to ratify Novatian. He added that Fabius himself had just died 
and that the bishop of Jerusalem was likewise dead in prison. 
We know nothing further of the Antiochene synod. It concluded 
probably not to break with the majority organizations in Rome 
and Alexandria, especially in face of the impending renewal of 
persecution.*** But the lack of hearty Asiatic approval of the 
Roman policy showed itself when the next critical problem with 
regard to the treatment of Christians outside the orthodox fold 
came up for settlement a few years later.’? 

In Africa, a formidable faction, led by the deacon Felicissi- 
mus, still maintained congregations where the lapsed were ad- 
mitted to full communion without a previous period of probation 
and penance. These congregations elected their own bishop, 
Fortunatus, and then sent Felicissimus and a few companions to 
Rome to denounce Cyprian there for undue severity and for 
failure to keep Cornelius completely informed of the trend of 
African events. That they succeeded in thoroughly agitating 
Cornelius is shown by Cyprian’s anxious and indignant letter, 
written just before the end of 252, to remind Cornelius of his own 
unimpeachable record and to express his surprise that Cornelius 
should be so perturbed by rebels under sentence of excommunica- 
tion or that he should so infringe upon another man’s episcopal 
jurisdiction as to entertain complaints from members of the 


been guilty of the sin of offering sacrifice. For when they had ascertained by 
tests that their remorse and contrition were sufficient to be accepted by him who 
desires not the death of the sinner but his repentance, they received and gathered 
them together and met and united with them in their feasts. What advice then, 
brethren, do you give us regarding these persons? What are we to do? Shall we 
follow the same course and principle as they and observe their rule and their 
charity and show mercy to those on whom they had compassion? Or shall we 
call their decision wrong and set ourselves up as judges of their principle and 
grieve mercy and overturn order? ” Eusebius, op. cit., VI, 42, 5. Cyprian’s letter 
to Fabius has not been preserved. Infra, p. 382. 

151 Three years later, Dionysius writes to Pope Stephen that the eastern 
churches have all rejected Novatianism and are at peace. Infra, p. 410. 

152 The letter written by a synod at Antioch ninety years later to Bishop 
Julius at Rome expresses what must often have been in the minds of the Asiatic 
churchmen. Infra, p. 506. 


356 THE SEE OF PETER 


African diocese, who ought properly to be referred for judgment 
to the African church. Either Cyprian’s letter, which he asked 
Cornelius to read aloud to the Roman church, or the representa- 
tions of cooler heads at Rome seem to have stiffened Cornelius 
into disregarding Felicissimus. At all events, when we hear again 
from Cyprian, early in 253, Felicissimus has dropped from view. 
A council of African bishops under Cyprian’s leadership notifies 
Cornelius of their intention to bring into the church straightway 
all the lapsed who seem genuinely repentant, that arms may be 
given “to men about to face the battle.” Then Cyprian himself 
writes in a high key of exaltation He has heard that Cornelius 
has made a brave confession and rejoices that the church of 
Rome has such a head. Whichever of them meets death alias 
let him remember the other in the house of the Lord. 

From all this one can make fairly clear the position that 
Cornelius occupied, at least in the eyes of some of his most 
prominent associates. To the ecclesiastical statesmen of the day, 
such as Cyprian and Dionysius, each metropolitan was sovereign 
in his own territory and each provincial group of bishops com- 
petent to solve independently all religious problems, taking care 
only to preserve harmony and a fair understanding with the rest 
of the brethren. The See of Rome, deriving from Peter, symbol- 
ized in a somewhat special way the unity and authority that 
characterized the entire episcopate.* The power to bind and 
loose had been bestowed upon Peter first before its extension to 
the other apostles. To the Roman bishop then, as an elder 
brother, the younger members of the episcopal family owed a 
punctilious respect. As bishop also of the church in the imperial 
capital he was charged with the duty of acting as liaison officer 
to keep in touch with the Christian organizations everywhere, 
and he had a right to expect from other bishops reports of 
important occurrences in their localities. But Christians who 
differed from him were adjured not to yield their opinions in 
deference to his prerogative but simply to maintain the peace 
in concern for the unity of the Lord’s Church.*** Cornelius him- 
self seems to have preferred to take action in company and to 


158 Supra, p. 325; infra, p. 406. 154 Supra, p. 350, n. 138; infra, pp. 362, 374. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 357 


have fortified himself by the contemplation not of his own unique 
and solitary authority but of the strength of his backing in the 
Roman community.’ 

Cornelius’ confession was not followed by execution but 
merely by banishment to Civita Vecchia. Gallus’ persecution 
was, after all, less wholehearted than that of Decius. Neverthe- 
less, Cornelius did not long survive his trial and died in Civita 
Vecchia before the summer was over. His body was brought 
back and buried in a private crypt near the cemetery of Callistus, 
outside the city walls, and popular tradition soon invented a story 
of a bloody death by the sword. His relations with Cyprian had, 
as we have seen, been neither intimate nor always sympathetic 
but the fact that there had been considerable correspondence be- 
tween them and that Cyprian’s own death as a martyr took place 
five years later on the same day of the year as that of Cornelius’ 
burial, so that their names stood together in the Western mar- 
tyrologies and liturgical calendars, caused them to become indis- 
solubly linked in the public mind as brother saints and heroes.**® 
Frescoes of the sixth century in Cornelius’ crypt show the two 
standing side by side in their episcopal robes and their portraits 
are repeated in the same posture in many old Roman churches. 
At last, in the ninth century, emissaries of Charles the Bald dis- 
interred the body of Cornelius from its crypt on the Via Appia 
and the body of Cyprian from its vault in Carthage and carried 
them both away to make sacred the church of Compiégne and 
join their ashes in that last exile. 


Every ecclesiastical history contains accounts of the Novatianist con- 
troversy and the organization of the Roman church as depicted by Cornelius. 
See among others J. Langen, Geschichte der rémischen Kirche (4 vols., 
Bonn, 1881-1893), Vol. I, pp. 290 sgg.; K. Laimbach, Cornelius, in J. J. 
Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopddie fiir protestantische Theologie und 
Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. IV; G. Hodges, The Early Church 
from Ignatius to Augustine (New York, 1915), pp. 101 sgg.; L. Duchesne, 
Early History of the Christian Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 


155 Infra, pp. 384-385. 

156 For an abbreviated version of the legend of Cornelius’ passion see L. R. 
Loomis, The Book of the Popes, 27-28. Cornelius and Cyprian are venerated on 
September 16. 


358 THE SEE OF PETER 


3 vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. I, pp. 295-303; B. J. Kidd, History of the 
Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols., Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. I, pp. 442-454. 


Cyprian, Epistolae, XLIV. Text. Ed. by W. Hartel, 
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, IIT’, 


597-599. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting.*®” 

1 There have come to us from Novatian, beloved 
brother, Maximus, a priest, Augendus, a deacon, and one 
Machaeus and one Longinus. But when we discovered, 
both from the letter which they brought with them and 
from their own conversation and report, that Novatian had 
been made a bishop, we were distressed by the wickedness 
of an unlawful ordination, performed in opposition to the 
catholic Church, and decided at once to prohibit them from 
communion with us. Then, while we were peremptorily 
denying and refuting the assertions they tried obstinately 
and insistently to make, I and a number of my colleagues 
who had gathered with me watched for the return of our 
colleagues, Caldonius and Fortunatus, whom we had shortly 
before dispatched as envoys to you, and for that of our 
fellow bishops who attended your ordination. For we 
thought that on their arrival they would report with full 


authority the truth of what had happened and by their 


plain testimony expose the dishonesty of your rival. But, 
in the meantime, Pompey and Stephen, our colleagues, ar- 
rived and themselves brought proofs and statements, con- 
vincing to us by their weight and trustworthiness, to en- 
lighten us here, so that there was no need of ries further 
to the emissaries from Novatian. 

2 But they broke in upon our solemn assembly with 
spiteful abuse and indecent clamor and demanded that the 


157 This letter and the next were obviously written within a short time of 
each other. This may have been the later of the two. 


Se a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 359 


accusations, which they said they had brought and would 
prove, be publicly investigated by us and the people. Then 
we said that it was not consistent with our dignity to suffer 
the honor of our colleague, who had already been elected 
and ordained and approved and commended by many, to be 
called in question any longer by the voice of slanderous 
rivals. And, because it would be tedious to relate in a 
letter the means by which they were refuted, subdued and 
thwarted in their unruly efforts to create a heresy, Primi- 
tivus, our fellow priest, will tell you everything in full when 
he reaches you. 

3 But, since their wild presumption allows them no rest, 
they. are endeavoring here too to divide the members of 
Christ into schismatical parties and to break and tear 
asunder the body of the catholic Church and are hurrying 
about from door to door, through many houses, and from 
town to town, through divers cities, searching for companions 
in their stubbornness and error. We have once already 
replied to them and we continue to command them to 
abandon their dangerous dissension and plotting and to 
recognize that it is impiety to desert their mother and 
to realize and admit that once a bishop has been appointed 
and confirmed by the testimony and judgment of his col- 
leagues and the people it is altogether impossible to appoint 
another. Hence, if they profess to have peaceful and loyal 
intentions and to be champions of the gospel and of Christ, 
they ought first to return to the Church. I bid you, dearly 
beloved brother, ever farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XLV. Text. Op. cit., 599-603. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. 

1 We have recently, dearly beloved brother, in accord- 
ance with our duty as servants of God and, more especially, 
as just and peaceloving priests, sent our colleagues, Cal- 


360 THE SEE OF PETER 


donius and Fortunatus, not so much to persuade you with 
our letter as to make every possible effort and exertion them- 
selves during their stay, with the help of you all, to restore 
the members of the rent body to the unity of the catholic 
Church and knit together the bond of Christian charity. . . . 

2 But our own attitude and purpose have already been 
made clear to all the brethren and people here. For letters 
have been lately received here from both parties, but we 
read your letter aloud and announced to every ear your 
ordination to the episcopate. We were mindful of our 
common honor and had respect for the dignity and sanctity 
of the priesthood and we abhorred the bitter accusations 
massed together in the document put out by your opponents 
and took into careful consideration what it was fitting to 
read and to hear in a great religious assembly of the breth- 
ren, with the priests of God sitting beside us and the altar 
standing in its place. For words should not be indifferently 
spoken nor thoughtlessly and heedlessly repeated abroad ~ 
which scandalize the hearers by their rancorous tone and — 
create confusion of opinion in the minds of brethren far 
distant from you, across the sea. ... And so, dearest 
brother, although charges of this sort against you came to 
me from your fellow priest, who held office with you,” I 
gave directions that only those communications that ex-— 
pressed harmoniously the single-mindedness of religion and 
were not blatant with the loud complaints of malicious 
wrongdoers should be read to our clergy and people. 

3 Nor are we forgetful of the old customs and intent 
upon innovation, because we have wished to receive the 
reports of our own colleagues, who were present there at 
your ordination. For your announcement by letter of your 
election to the bishopric would have been sufficient, were 
there not the opposing faction against you, which is confus- 
ing the minds and disturbing the sentiments of many of my 


158 J.¢., Novatian. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 361 


colleagues as well as of the brethren by its criminal and 
slanderous accusations. To allay this mischief we have con- 
sidered it necessary to procure the solid and indisputable 
authority of our colleagues, who are writing to us from Rome 
and who in their letters have furnished adequate testimony 
as to the character of your life and discipline and have thus 
removed every pretext for doubt and controversy from those 
disaffected persons who enjoy either the novelty or the per- 
versity of the situation. ... For this most of all, my 
brother, is and should be the object of our endeavor, to 
maintain, as far as in us lies, the unity committed by the 
Lord through the apostles to us, their successors. . . . 

4 As regards the case of the priests and Felicissimus 
here, our colleagues have sent you a letter, written in their 
own hand, to inform you what they have done.’ When 
you read it, you will know from their own letter what they 
decided and what verdict they pronounced. You will be act- 
ing wisely, brother, if you have read to your brethren there 
a copy of the letter which I lately sent by our colleagues, 
Caldonius and Fortunatus, to be read to you as a sign of 
mutual affection, that is, the letter I wrote on the subject of 
the same Felicissimus and priests to the clergy here, not to 
the people. It treats also of ordination and the course of 
events. In that way the brotherhood both here and there 
will have instruction from us. I am now forwarding another 
copy of the same letter by Mettius, the subdeacon, and 
Nicephorus, the acolyte, whom I am sending to you. I bid 
you, dearly beloved brother, ever farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XLVI. Text. Op. cit., 604-605. 
Cyprian to Maximus, Nicostratus and the other con- 
fessors, °° greeting. 


159 An allusion to the clerical commission that had passed sentence on Felicis- 
simus, Novatus and their companions before Cyprian’s return to Carthage. Supra, 
aK KKE 160 For these Roman confessors, vide supra, pp. 341, 342, 344. 


362 THE SEE OF PETER 


[A short letter, expressing pain and grief at hearing that 
they had taken part in creating a new bishop and setting up 
a new church. They are urged to return to their mother 
and to remember their confession. | 


Ibid., Epistolae, XLVII. Text. Op. cit., 605-606. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. 

It has seemed incumbent upon me, dearest brother, and 
a duty I owe to you that I should write a short letter to 
the confessors in your city who have been beguiled by the 
obstinate errors of Novatian and Novatus and have left the 
church, to plead with them in the name of our mutual affec- 
tion to return to their mother, the Church catholic. I have 
told the subdeacon Mettius to read this letter first to you, 
for fear that someone may report falsely that I have written 
something beside what is in it. Moreover, I have also told 
Mettius, whom I am sending to you, to do with it as you 
wish and to deliver the letter to the confessors only in case 
you think they will heed it. I bid you, dearest brother, ever 
farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XLVII. Text. Op. cit., 606-608. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. 

1 I have read the letter, dearest brother, which you 
sent by Primitivus, our fellow priest." and I observe in it 
that you are annoyed, because letters from the colony of 
Adrumetum in the name of Polycarp had been addressed 
to you until Liberalis and I went there, when the letters 
from there began to be addressed to your priests and 
deacons.*” 


161 Primitivus had been the bearer of a previous letter from Cyprian to 
Cornelius. Supra, p. 3509. 

162 J.e., “to the priests and deacons at Rome,” as Cyprian had addressed his 
own letters during the vacancy in the Roman See. 


é 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 363 


2 But I wish you to understand and thoroughly believe 
that this action was not the result of carelessness nor of 
contempt. For we and a number of our colleagues, who 
had met together, had previously determined that during 
the interval while our fellow bishops, Caldonius and For- 
tunatus, were being sent as envoys to you, all our judgments 
should be held in suspense as they were, until these same 
colleagues of ours, on the restoration of concord at Rome or 
on their own discovery of the truth, should return to us. 
But since our fellow bishop Polycarp was not with us, the 
priests and deacons at Adrumetum were ignorant of what 
we had decided in our meeting. When we went to them in 
person and they learned of our intention, they also began 
to follow the example of the rest, so that the harmony of 
_ the churches here was in no respect broken. 

3 There are persons, however, who at times upset men’s 
minds and spirits by their words, telling things contrary to 
the truth. Now we, who supply everyone who sails from 
here with advice, so that they may travel without offence, 
know that we have exhorted everyone to acknowledge and 
uphold the root and matrix of the catholic Church.“ But 
since our province is widely extended and has Numidia and 
Mauretania attached to it, and since the schism which has 
arisen at Rome perplexes with doubt the minds of people 
at a distance, we likewise decided to ascertain through these 
bishops the facts of the situation and to obtain authoritative 
proofs of your ordination and then at last, after banishing 
every scruple from every breast, to send letters to you from 
all the inhabitants everywhere in the province. This in fact 
we have done, so that all our colleagues may heartily ap- 
prove and support both you and your communion, that is, 
both the unity and the charity of the catholic Church. We 

163 Je, the Roman episcopate. Even during the period of waiting Cyprian 


has not failed to inculcate reverence for the Roman See as “ the root and matrix” 
from which the rest of the Church had sprung. 


364 THE SEE OF PETER 


are rejoiced that all this has, by God’s help, come about and 
that our design has under Providence been successful. 

4 For, in this way, both the genuineness and the dignity 
of your episcopate have been established in the clearest 
light with the most open and well grounded approval. From 
the accounts of our colleagues who have written to us from — 
Rome and from the report and testimony of our fellow 
bishops, Pompey and Stephen, Caldonius and Fortunatus, 
both the essential grounds and the correct procedure, as well 
as the glorious spotlessness of your ordination are known 
to us all. The divine power guard us, that we and our other 
colleagues may steadfastly and firmly administer our office 
and preserve it in the peaceful concord of the catholic 
Church. So may the Lord, who deigns to choose and ap- 
point for himself priests in his Church, protect them, when 
chosen and appointed, by his favor and bounty, inspiring 
them to govern and supplying strength to check the forward- 
ness of the wicked and gentleness to foster the repentance 
of the fallen! I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily 
farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, XLIX. Text. Op. cit., 608-612. 


Cornelius to his brother Cyprian, greeting. 

1 The care and anxiety that we have endured over 
those confessors who were deluded and almost blinded and 
estranged from the Church by the guile and malice of an 
unscrupulous deceiver have been great but the joy which 
now relieves us is equally great and we give thanks to 
Almighty God and Christ our Lord that they have perceived 
their error and recognized the poisonous, serpentine wiles of 
the evildoer and by their own clear choice, as they themselves 
declare from their hearts, have returned to the Church which 
they had left. In the beginning, some of our brethren, tried 
in the faith, lovers of peace and desirous of unity, told us of 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 365 


the rebellious obstinacy of one group and of the softening 
of the others but we had not sufficient confidence to be able 
to believe readily that they had changed with such sudden- 
ness. But afterwards, the confessors Urbanus and Sidonius 
came to our fellowpriests and asserted that the confessor 
and priest Maximus . . .“* were likewise eager to return 
with them to the Church. However, since many statements 
had already issued from them, as you also have learned from 
our fellowship and my own letters, it seemed best not to 
trust them too hastily but to hear from the confession of 
their own lips the sentiments which they had transmitted 
by messengers. So after they had come and had been 
questioned by the priests as to their behavior and finally as 
to the fact that numerous letters, crammed with abuse and 
imprecations, had been sent out in their names to all the 
churches and had alarmed almost all of them, they stated 
that they had been deceived and that they had not known 
what was in those letters but had merely signed them, that 
they had been misled by his craft and had committed them- 
selves to the schism and been founders of the heresy, so far 
as to consent to his receiving the laying on of hands like a 
bishop. And when they had expressed their reprobation 
of these and other acts, they begged that they might be 
blotted out and expunged from memory. 

2 When the whole affair had been reported to me, I de- 
cided that the presbytery should be called together. There 
were present also five bishops, who were with us on that 
day. For I wished that after thorough consultation it might 
be determined by general agreement what should be done 
with regard to these men. And in order that you may know 
the feeling of us all and each person’s opinion, I have thought 
best to notify you of our various judgments, which you may 
read enclosed with this. Then Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius 
and many brothers who had agreed with them came into 

164 A few words are missing here from the Latin text. 


366 THE SEE OF PETER 


the presbytery and begged earnestly that the events now 
past might be forgotten and never again mentioned and 
that henceforth all their sins might be obliterated, whether 
of deed or word, and that they might now keep their hearts 
clean and pure before God in obedience to the gospel words: 
‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” *” 
The next step was to bring the entire performance to the 
knowledge of the people, so that they too might see them 
standing within the church, after they had so long sorrow- 
fully beheld them wandering and astray. When this inten- 
tion was made known, there was a huge gathering of the 
brotherhood. With one voice they all gave thanks to God 
and showed by tears the joy in their bosoms, embracing the 
confessors as if it had been the day of their liberation from 
the pains of prison. I will give you the confessors’ own 
declaration. ‘ We,” they said, “ recognize Cornelius as 
bishop of the most holy catholic Church, chosen by Almighty 
God and Christ our Lord. We confess our error; we have 
been victims of imposture; we have been deceived by wily 
perfidy and loquacity. Yet even though we seemed to hold 
a kind of communion with one who was a schismatic and 
a heretic, our heart was always in the Church. And we 
know that there is one God and one Christ the Lord, whom 
we have confessed, and one Holy Spirit and that in a 
catholic church there ought to be one bishop.” *** Who 
would not have been moved by this profession, seeing them 
standing in the church and reaffirming what they had once 
confessed before the powers of the world? So we bade the 
priest Maximus resume his office. All the past errors of 


165 Matthew, V, 8. 

166 The point on which stress is laid is not the error of Novatian’s dogmatic 
contention but the crime of erecting a second bishopric. The principle that there 
should be but one bishop of the Church in any city had been formulated, probably 
as a matter of practical expediency, by the time of Ignatius of Antioch. Supra, 
p. 239. In the third century, it had become an accepted article of faith and men 
like Cyprian saw in it a mystical significance. The Council of Nicaea put it 
into law. 


— es, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 367 


the others we committed by an overwhelming vote of the 
people to Almighty God, to whose power all things are 
reserved. 

3 These events, dearest brother, we are reporting to you 
by letter the same hour and the same moment and are at 
once sending back to you Nicephorus, the acolyte, who is 
hurrying from the assembly down to the ship, so that with- 
out delay you may give thanks along with us to Almighty 
God and Christ our Lord, as if you were here in person 
among this clergy and in this gathering of the people. We 
believe, nay, we are confident, that the rest also who have 
been involved in this error will promptly return to the 
Church when they see the leaders on our side. I think, 
dearest brother, that you should send this letter to the other 
churches as well, so that they all may know that the intrigue 
and falsity of this schismatic and heretic are unavailing from 
this day forth. Farewell, dearest brother. 


Ibid., Epistolae, L. Text. Op. cit., 613-614. 


Cornelius to his brother Cyprian, greeting.’ 

Nothing shall diminish the future punishment of this 
wretch or his overthrow by the powers of God, for after 
Maximus, Longinus and Machaeus had been rejected by 
you, he revived again and, as I have told you in the earlier 
letter which I sent by the confessor Augendus, I believe that 
Nicostratus, Novatus, Evaristus, Primus and Dionysius have 
now joined him. So take pains to inform all our fellow- 
bishops and brethren that Nicostratus is accused of many 
crimes and not only has committed fraud and robbery 
against the secular patroness whose affairs he was managing 
but also has stolen largely from the funds of the church, 
a sin which has ensured for him eternal punishment, and 


167 This letter, probably, was written before the preceding. 
168 On these men vide supra, p. 358. 


368 THE SEE OF PETER 


that Evaristus has been appointed in his place for the people 
over whom he formerly presided. Novatus has displayed 
here his malice and insatiable avarice throughout, just as he 
invariably did with you. So you may realize what sort of 
leaders and champions this schismatic and heretic keeps 
always close to his side. Farewell, dearest brother. 


Ibid., Epistolae, LIL. Text. Op. cit., 616-620. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. 

[He regrets to hear that Nicostratus and Evaristus have 
joined the heretical party. As for Novatus, he was always 
a troublesome character in Africa, a torch to inflame sedi- 
tion, etc. | 

2... He is the one who as an ambitious upstart in- 
stalled Felicissimus, his satellite, as deacon without my sanc- 
tion or knowledge and when in due course he journeyed to 
Rome to overturn that church also, he took similar and 
equally grave steps there. For he separated a part of the 
people from their clergy and destroyed the harmony of the 
brotherhood, which at that time was closely knit together 
and in charity with one another. And inasmuch as Rome 
by its greatness is obviously superior to Carthage, he com- 
mitted there still greater and more serious offenses. For 
here he had created a deacon in Ba to the church 
but there he created a bishop. . 


Ibid., Epistolae, LIII. Text. Op. cit., 620. 


Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius and Macarius to their 
brother Cyprian, greeting. 

We are sure, dearest brother, that your joy will be as 
deep as ours, that we after deliberation and in growing 
concern for the welfare and concord of the Church have 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 369 


made peace with Cornelius, our bishop, and all the clergy, 
and that all the past has been wiped out and committed to 
the judgment of God. We thought that you should be in- 
formed by a letter from us that this has taken place, in 
the midst of rejoicing on the part of the whole church and 
ready charity from everyone. We bid you, brother, dearest 
for many years, farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, LIV. Text. Op. cit., 621-624. 


| Cyprian replies to the preceding, expressing his joy and 
congratulations. He sends the confessors a copy of his new 
treatise, De Lapsis, for them to read. | 


Ibid., Epistolae, LV. Text. Op. cit., 624-628. 


Cyprian to his brother Antonianus,’® greeting. 

1 I have received, dearest brother, your first letter, in 
which you stoutly defended the unity of the sacerdotal fel- 
lowship and supported the catholic Church and declared that 
you held no communion with Novatian but accepted our ad- 
vice and were one with our fellow bishop, Cornelius. You 
wrote also that I should send a copy of that same letter of 
yours to our colleague Cornelius, that he might have no anx- 
iety but be assured that you were in communion with him, 
that is, with the Church catholic. 

2 But since then your second letter has arrived, sent 
by Quintus, our fellow priest, in which I notice that your 
mind has begun to vacillate under the influence of a letter 
from Novatian. For whereas you had before stated posi- 
tively your opinion and your agreement with us, in this 
letter you ask me to explain to you what was the heresy 
introduced by Novatian and on what ground Cornelius is 
holding communion with Trofimus and persons who offered 
incense. ... 


169 A bishop in the province of Africa. 


370 THE SEE OF PETER 


3... And first of all, since you seem to be disturbed 
about my own conduct as well, I must exonerate myself and 
my course in your eyes, so that no one may fancy that I 
weakly abandoned my position and after maintaining in the 
beginning the rigor of the gospel, changed later my original 
ideas of discipline and censure. . . . 

4 For while the battle was still going forward and the 
conflict of glorious warfare in persecution was at its height, 
I believed that the energy of the soldiers must be kept up 
with every kind of encouragement and with all my ardor. 
In particular, the spirit of the lapsed must be awakened by 
the trumpet of our voice, that they might not only seek 
with prayers and mourning the way of penitence but, when- 
ever an opportunity offered of renewing the combat, might 
be fired and stimulated by our words to bold confession 
and glorious martyrdom. ... 

5 In addition, I wrote at great length to Rome, to the 
clergy there, at that time without a bishop, and to the 
confessors, the priest Maximus and others in prison, now 
united with Cornelius in the church. What I wrote you can 
infer from their replies. . . . 

6 Then, in accordance with our previous determination, 
when the persecution was relaxed and there was chance for 
us to meet together, a numerous concourse of us bishops, who 
were still preserved, by our own faith and the Lord’s pro- 
tection, safe and unharmed, assembled together. After read- 
ing the statements on both sides, we meted out a moderate 
and wholesome sentence, in order that, on the one hand, 
the lapsed should not be deprived of all hope of communion 
and peace, for fear lest in their despair they might fall 
away still more and seek after the world, because the Church 
was shut against them, and live as the gentiles do, and also 
that, on the other hand, the gospel penalty should not be 
ignored in favor of a hasty rush to communion but a lengthy 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 371 


penance should be performed and the Father’s mercy be 
implored in grief and the circumstances, motives and com- 
pulsions of each person be investigated, as I have described 
in the treatise **? which I trust has reached you and which 
contains every article of our decision. And if the number 
of the bishops in Africa should not seem to you sufficiently 
weighty, we wrote also to Rome on this subject, to Cornelius, 
our colleague. He too held a council of many of his fellow 
bishops and with equal gravity and wholesome moderation 
adopted the same policy as we have done. 


8 I come now, dearest brother, to the question of our 
colleague Cornelius, that you may know Cornelius more 
truly, as we do, not through the lies of malignant detractors 
but through the judgment of God, who created him bishop, 
and through the testimony of his fellow bishops, all of whom 
throughout the world uphold him in harmonious unity. One 
praiseworthy mark of our dearly beloved Cornelius, which 
commends him to God and Christ and his Church, that is, 
all his fellow priests, is that he did not attain the episcopate 
unprepared but was promoted through all the offices of the 
Church and often won the favor of the Lord by his holy 
ministrations and thus ascended through all the ranks of 
religion to the lofty crown of priesthood. Furthermore, he 
neither requested nor desired the bishopric nor did he at- 
tempt to grasp it, as others have done, who are puffed up 
with swelling arrogance and conceit. But he was always 
quiet and unassuming and like those whom God selects for 
this office. In the modesty of his virgin continence and 
the humility of his inborn, safeguarded piety he employed 
no force, as some do, to be made bishop but himself suffered 
force and accepted the bishopric under compulsion. He was 
ordained by many of our colleagues, who were then in the 

170 The treatise, De Lapsis, supra, p. 369. 


372 THE SEE OF PETER 


city of Rome and who sent us letters about his ordination, 
full of esteem and praise and glowing with accounts of his 
words. So Cornelius was created bishop through the judg- 
ment of God and his Christ, with the testimony of almost all 
the clergy and the assent of the people who were then pres- 
ent, by the college of aged and saintly bishops. For no one 
had been bishop before him since the post of Fabianus, that 
is, the post of Peter and the office of the sacerdotal episco- 
pate, had been left empty. But now that he has assumed 
it and has been confirmed by God’s will and the consent of 
us all, whoever else tries to become bishop must become one 
outside the Church and lack the Church’s ordination, because 
he does not preserve the unity of the Church. Whoever that 
man may be and however much he boasts and claims for 
himself, he is sacrilegious, he is a stranger, he is an outsider. 
And since after the first there can be no second, whoever 
becomes bishop after the one who should be the only one, 
is not the second but nothing at all. 

9 In the next place, after Cornelius had received the 
bishopric, not by intrigue or violence but by the will of God 
who creates priests, he displayed such courage in under- 
taking his bishopric, such fortitude of mind, such constancy 
of faith, that we are fain to acknowledge and applaud him 
highly with undivided heart. He assumed his place fear- 
lessly in the sacerdotal see at Rome, at the very time when 
the hateful tyrant was threatening God’s priest with every 
describable and indescribable penalty and would have con- 
sidered it far less irksome and intolerable to hear that a 
rival prince had arisen to attack him than that a priest of 
God had been installed at Rome.*” Should he not, dearest 
brother, be celebrated with the highest awards of courage 
and faith, should he not be numbered among the glorious 


171 Harnack takes this last clause to be a quotation from Decius’ own lips, 
a remark that he was reported to have made. The Latin seems to us to leave 
this in doubt. Cyprian may have been expressing in his own language a feeling 
attributed to Decius. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 373 


confessors and martyrs, who accepted the see at such a 
time, expecting the butchers of the body and the execu- 
tioners from the ferocious tyrant to murder him with the 
sword or to crucify him or to burn him with fire or to 
lacerate his limbs and vitals with some new device of tor- 
ture, but who disregarded the cruel edicts and despised 
threats, sufferings and torments by the power of faith? For 
even if the majesty and goodness of the protecting Lord 
have kept watch over the appointed bishop whom he has 
chosen, nevertheless Cornelius in his devotion and his fears 
endured all that he could endure and by his priestly sanctity 
overcame the tyrant before that tyrant’s defeat by arms in 
atthe: 220. 

11 ...He deliberated with many of his colleagues there 
before he admitted Trofimus, who atoned for himself by 
bringing back many brethren and restoring them to salva- 
Hon, $3. 

12 But the rumor that reached you, that Cornelius was 
holding communion from time to time with persons who had 
offered sacrifice, originated also in one of the tales invented 
by the apostates. .. . Therefore, be slow to heed or credit 
all the stories that go about regarding Cornelius and our- 
selves, dearest brother. . . . [Need of wisdom and mercy 
in dealing with the fallen.| | 

21 Some, indeed, of the bishops among our predecessors 
here in our province believed that peace should not be given 
to harlots and excluded adulterers entirely from penance.’” 
But they did not on this account withdraw from fellowship 
with other bishops nor did they by the obstinacy of their 
severity and discipline destroy the unity of the catholic 
Church. Because others granted peace to adulterers, he who 
refused it did not cut himself off from the Church. The 
bond of harmony stood firm and the indivisible sacrament of 
the catholic Church continued and each separate bishop gov- 

172 T.e., held rhe Puritan views of Tertullian. Supra, pp. 297, 301. 


374 THE SEE OF PETER 


erned and determined his own conduct, in the knowledge 
that he would render account of his deeds to the Lord. . . . 

24 As to the character of Novatian, dearest brother, 
about whom you requested that I should write you what 
heresy he has introduced, remember in the first place that 
we ought not even to be inquisitive as to what he teaches, 
so long as he teaches outside the Church. Whoever he is 
and whatever he is, he who is not in the Church of Christ is 
not a Christian." However he may boast and proclaim his 
philosophy and eloquence in lofty words, he who has failed 
to preserve either brotherly love or ecclesiastical unity has 
lost even what he once was. Unless, indeed, you deem him 
bishop, who, after a bishop has been ordained by sixteen 
fellow bishops in a church, contrives by bribery to be or- 
dained by deserters an adulterous and alien bishop and al- 
though there is but one Church, divided by Christ into many 
members throughout the whole world, and likewise one epis- 
copate, extended far and wide through a harmonious multi- 
tude of many bishops, in spite of divine tradition, in spite 
of the combined and universally compacted unity of the 
catholic Church, sets about to create a human church and 
sends his own apostles through many cities, to establish 
some fresh foundations of his own institution. And although 
for a long time past, in all the provinces and in every city, 
men have been ordained bishops who are advanced in years, 
perfect in faith, tried in adversity, proscribed in persecution, 
yet he dares to appoint other men, false bishops, over 
them Jette 


Ibid., Epistolae, LIX. Text. Op. cit., 666-601. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. 
1 I have read, dearest brother, the letter which you 


173 Here again one notes that it is easier to condemn Novatian as schismatic 
than to prove him heretic. Supra, p. 366, n. 166. Cyprian, however, does not de- 
scend to such depths of personal abuse as Cornelius does. Infra, pp. 383 ff. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 375 


sent by our brother, the acolyte Saturus, so full of fraternal 
affection and churchly discipline and priestly austerity. In 
it you told me that Felicissimus, no new enemy of Christ 
but one whom I expelled long ago for his numerous grave 
offenses and who was condemned not only by my sentence 
but by that of many of my fellow bishops also,** had been 
excluded by you at Rome and although he came escorted 
by a troop from the violent faction, had been shut out from 
the church with that unhesitating energy with which bishops 
ought to take action. From that church he was long ago 
debarred by the majesty of God and the severity of Christ, 
our Lord and Judge. . 

2 But when I read your second letter, brother, which 
you appended to the first, I was much astonished to observe 
that you had been somewhat perturbed by the threats and 
menaces of the persons who came and, as you wrote, as- 
saulted you and recklessly declared that if you did not ac- 
cept the letter which they presented, they would read it in 
public and who added many disgraceful and abusive accusa- 
tions, suitable to their lips. But if it is the case, dearest 
brother, that the audacity of evildoers is to terrify us and 
_ that what wicked men cannot accomplish by just and lawful 
means they can do by desperate daring, there is an end of 
the strength of the episcopacy and the lofty and divine 
authority to govern the Church. Nor can we continue any 
longer nor, in fact, can we now be Christians, if it is come 
to the point that we are frightened at the threats and snares 
of outcasts. For the gentiles and the Jews also threaten us, 
and the heretics and all whose hearts and minds are obsessed 
by the devil give vent daily to their venomous anger in malig- 
nant words. But one should not quail before them, because 
they threaten, nor is the adversary and enemy mightier than 
Christ, because he makes so many boasts and claims in this 
world. Our faith, dearest brother, should stand immovable 


174 Supra, Pp. 333) 347, 361. 


376 THE SEE OF PETER 


and steadfast and our courage stalwart against every onset 
and attack of the noisy flood and should oppose them with 
the massive force of the unshaken rock. Nor does it matter 
from what quarter fear or danger assails a bishop, since he 
lives exposed to fears and dangers, yet out of these very 
fears and dangers is made glorious. Nor should we antici- 
pate and expect menaces from gentiles and Jews alone, for 
we see that the Lord himself was hindered by his brethren 
and betrayed by one whom he had chosen to be among his 
apostles. .. 

3 But, dearest brother, ecclesiastical discipline is not 
on that account to be abandoned nor priestly rules relaxed, 
because we are beset with reproaches or unnerved with 
terrors, for divine Scripture foretells and warns us against 
that ati: 

5 In view of such great and numerous examples, that 
confirm by divine warrant the priestly authority and power, 
what sort of persons, do you think, are those enemies of 
priests and rebels against the catholic Church who are not 
deterred by the solemn warnings of the Lord nor by the 
vengeance of future judgment? ‘This has been the very 
cause why heresies and schisms have arisen, that men do not 
obey the priest of God nor realize that there is one priest at a 
time in the Church and one judge at a time in Christ’s stead, 
and that if the whole brotherhood would obey him accord- 
ing to divine command, no one would stir up opposition to 
the priestly organization, for no one, in the face of God’s 
judgment, the assent of the people and the approbation of 
other bishops, would constitute himself a judge not of the 
bishops but of God, no one would rend the unity and tear 
asunder the Church of Christ and no one, to please himself 
and his swollen pride, would start a new heresy, separate 
and apart, — unless there be a man of such blasphemous in- 
difference and erroneous opinions as to suppose that a priest 


is created without the will of God, whereas the Lord says in 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 377 


the gospel: “ Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And 
one of them does not fall to the ground without the will of 
the Father.” *”. .. 

6 Because I myself am challenged I say more. I say 
it reluctantly. I say it under compulsion. When a bishop 
has been set in the place of one who is dead,” elected in 
peace by the love of the whole people, when he is protected 
by God’s help in persecution, supported faithfully by all his 
colleagues, approved still by his people through four years 
of episcopacy, when in time of quiet he maintains discipline, 
in time of storm is proscribed specifically by the name of his 
bishopric and also on several occasions searched for to be 
given to the lion, honored by the testimony of divine favor 
in the circus and amphitheatre, summoned by popular clamor 
a second time, during the very days in which I am writing 
this letter to you, to fight the lion in the circus for the 
sake of the sacrifices which the proclamation requires the 
people to make, when such a man, dearest brother, is at- 
tacked by reckless, unscrupulous persons outside the Church, © 
it is obvious who is his assailant. Not Christ, who appoints 
and guards his priests, but he who is the enemy of Christ 
and the foe of his Church, who harasses with hatred the 
ruler of the Church, so that after he has removed the pilot 
he may proceed more ferociously and violently to make 
shipwreck of the Church... . 

9 As for the election of that false bishop Fortunatus *” 
by a few hardened heretics, I did not write you of it at once, 
dearest brother, for it was not a matter of enough importance 
or gravity to be reported to you in great haste, especially 
since you already knew Fortunatus by name. For he is one 
of the five priests who long ago deserted the church and 

175 Matthew, X, 29. 

176 The following is a summary of Cyprian’s own episcopate. He begins by 
contrasting his election with that of a schismatic bishop, chosen while the lawful 


bishop is still living. 
177 Supra, p. 355. 


378 THE SEE OF PETER 


were later excommunicated by decision of many of our fellow 
bishops and influential men, who last year wrote a letter 
to you on the subject." I also thought you would recognize 
the name of Felicissimus, the standard bearer of sedition, 
who was mentioned in the same letter written to you at 
the time by our fellow bishops. The latter was not only 
excommunicated by these men here but has just now been 
expelled by you from the church in Rome. Since I sup- 
posed that you were aware of these facts and believed that 
you would certainly be guided by your memory and sense 
of discipline, I did not consider it necessary to notify you 
immediately and hurriedly of the herétics’ antics. . . . And 
I did not write you of their performance because we despise 
all these doings and because I was soon to send you the 
names of the bishops here who govern the brethren soundly 
and correctly in the catholic Church. It was the judgment 
of us all in this region that I should send these names to 
you, so as to forward the enterprise of exposing error and 
revealing truth, that you and our colleagues might know to 
whom you should write and from whom you should receive 
letters in your turn. Then, if anyone besides these men 
enumerated in our letter should venture to write to you, 
you might be sure that he had either been polluted by sac- 
rifice or certificate or that he was one of the heretics, that is, 
a wrongheaded, blasphemous person.’” But when I found 
a chance to send by one of the clergy well known to me, 
I wrote you an account of this Fortunatus, along with the 
other news that I thought should be reported to you from 
here, and dispatched it by the acolyte Felicianus, whom you 
sent over with our colleague, Perseus. However, while our 
brother Felicianus was delayed here by the wind or detained 
in order to take other letters from us, Felicissimus, who 
started promptly, reached you first. For thus evil always 


178 Supra, pp. 347, 361. 
179 J.¢., he would be either one of the lapsed or a Novatianist. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 379 


makes haste, as if by haste it might prevail over inno- 
cence. ... [The heretics claim a much larger following 
than they actually possess. They are communicating with 
the lapsed, etc. | 

14... After all this, with a pseudo-bishop besides, or- 
dained for them by heretics, they dare to set sail and carry 
letters from schismatic and blasphemous persons to the See 
of Peter, to the leading church, whence the unity of the 
priesthood took its rise,*® forgetting that those are the 
same Romans whose faith was publicly commended by 
the apostle ** and whom perfidy cannot touch. And what is 
the cause of their going to you and informing you that they 
have set up a false bishop in opposition to the genuine 
bishops? Either they are satisfied with what they have done 
and persist in their offense or else they regret and renounce 
it, in which case they know to what place they should re- 
turn. For it has been decreed by us all and it is furthermore 
right and just, that every case should be tried in the place 
where the wrong was committed. Since to each separate 
shepherd has been assigned one portion of the flock for him 
to direct and govern and give hereafter an account of his 
ministry to the Lord, so those over whom we are set ought 
not to wander about from place to place nor shatter the 
harmonious accord of bishops by sly and deceitful imperti- 
nence, but they should present their case in the place where 
they can confront their accusers and the witnesses of their 
evil doing. Unless, perhaps, the authority of the bishops in 
Africa seems too slight, in view of the fact that they have 
already passed sentence upon these men. ... ‘Their case 
has already been investigated, the verdict already pro- 
nounced, and it is not consistent with priestly discipline 
that we should be open to the charge of levity and a change- 

180 The Latin is: “ad Petri cathedram atque ad ecclesiam principalem unde 
unitas sacerdotalis exorta est.” Cf. supra, pp. 325, 348. This is the first appear- 


ance in our literature of the phrase, “See of Peter.” Bishop Stephen employed it, 
a little later. Infra, p. 415. 181 Romans, I, 8. 


380 THE SEE OF PETER 


able and inconstant mind, for the Lord instructs us in his 
words: “Let your communication be, ‘ Yea, yea, nay, 
NAV Buta 

16 In what language shall I speak of these men, who 
have now gone to you along with Felicissimus, the author 
of all this ill, sent as envoys by Fortunatus, their pseudo- 
bishop, bearing a letter to you as false as he is false whose 
letter it is, or as their own consciences are deep laden with 
crime or as their lives are reprehensible and base. Although 
they are in the Church, yet for such guilt they should have 
been cast out of the Church. In short, because of their bad 
consciences they do not dare to approach us or to draw near 
to the threshold of the church here, but they wander abroad 
through the province, deluding and defrauding the brethren. 
And now, because they have become known to everyone here 
and are everywhere refused entrance for their sins, they take 
ship from here to you. For they have not the face to come 
to us or to stand up in our midst, since there are extremely 
grave and serious accusations brought against them by the 
brethren. If they wish to test our justice, let them come. 
Then, if they have any excuse or defense, we shall see what 
is their notion of reparation and what fruit they show of 
repentance. The church here is closed to no one and the 
bishop denies himself to no one. Our patience and con- 
sideration and mercy are ready for all comers... . 

18 Or must, dearest brother, the dignity of the catholic 
Church and the honor of the faithful and undefiled people 
within it and the authority and power of its priests be dis- 
regarded, so that heretics outside the Church may say that 
they can sit in judgment on an officer of the Church? .. . 
Why then should not the Church submit to the Capitol, 
the priests retire and remove the Lord’s altar to make room ~ 
for images and idols and their shrines in the holy and vener- 
able meeting-places of our clergy and still more ground be 


afforded to Novatian for upbraiding and denouncing us, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 381 


since those who offered sacrifice and openly denied Christ 
not only are invited to enter without act of penance but 
have actually begun to terrorize and lord it over us? If 
they want peace, let them lay down their arms; if they 
are making atonement, why do they utter threats? If they 
threaten, let them discover that the priests of God are not 
1G ae 

19 And, inasmuch as I know, dearest brother, that for 
the mutual love we owe and feel for one another you are 
always accustomed to read our letters aloud to the distin- 
guished clergy who share your office with you and to your 
great and holy people, I adjure and entreat you now to do 
at my request what at other times you do of your own accord 
in my honor, so that whatever contagion may be working 
among you from his poisonous words and malicious insinu- 
ations may be wholly dispelled from our brothers’ ears and 
hearts by the reading of my letter and the perfect and sincere 
charity of good men be cleansed from all the vileness of 
heretical slander. 

20... And although I know that our brethren at 
Rome have been armed by your foresight and are so alert 
in their own vigilance that the poisons of the heretics can 
neither hurt nor deceive them and that the laws and precepts 
of God have weight with them, even as the fear of God is 
in them, nevertheless our concern and love for you have 
impelled us to write this out of a full heart, that you may 
cease from intercourse with such men. ... For there can 
be no fellowship between faith and perfidy. He who is not 
with Christ, who is a foe to Christ, who is an enemy to his 
unity and his peace, cannot be our associate. If they come 
to you with prayers and promises and amendment, hear 
them. If they flaunt threats and curses, spurn them. I bid 
you, dearest brother, ever farewell. 


382 THE SEE OF PETER 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V1, 43, I-12, 21; 46, 1-4. 
Text. Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen 
Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), Il’, 612- 
618, 622-624, 626-628. 


43 At this time, Novatus,* a priest of the Roman 
church, full of arrogant contempt for the lapsed, on the 
ground that there was no longer any hope of their salva- 
tion, not even if they displayed every sign of a genuine 
and pure repentance, became leader of the heresy of those 
who in pride of imagination call themselves Cathari.*** 
Whereupon a great synod met at Rome of bishops, sixty 
in number, and many more priests and deacons, while in 
other provinces the pastors deliberated separately in their 
places as to what should be done. A resolution was adopted 
by them all, that Novatus and his adherents and those who 
supported his unbrotherly and inhuman attitude should be 
pronounced aliens to the Church and that it should heal the 
brethren who had lapsed in the persecution and minister 
to them with the remedies of penance. 

There has come down to us a letter from Cornelius, 
bishop of the Romans, to Fabius of the church at Antioch, 
_ which relates what was done at the synod in Rome and 
what was the decision of those in Italy and Africa and the 
regions roundabout. Also other letters, written in the 
Roman tongue by Cyprian and his party in Africa, which 
show that they agreed as to the need of succoring those 
who had been tempted and of expelling utterly from the 
catholic Church the leader of the heresy and all his followers. 
Appended to these is another letter from Cornelius, describ- 
ing the resolutions of the synod, and still another on the 
conduct of Novatus, from which we must not fail to make 
quotations, so that the readers of this book may under- 


182 The name all through here, of course, should be Novatian. Eusebius does 
not distinguish between the two men, the Carthaginian Novatus, and the Roman 
Novatian. 

183 The Greek word means “ pure.” 


2 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 383 


stand about him. In the course of informing Fabius what 
sort of man Novatus was, Cornelius writes: 

“My aim in saying this is to have you see that this 
fellow has wanted the episcopate for a long time but has 
kept his ambitious craving secret to himself and has used 
as a cloak for his rebellion the fact that he had the con- 
fessors in agreement with him at the beginning. But 
Maximus, one of our priests, and Urbanus, both of whom 
won twice the great glory of confession, and Sidonius and 
Celerinus, a man who by God’s mercy mightily endured 
every torture and by the power of his faith overcame the 
weakness of the flesh and by strength conquered the ad- 
versary, these men discovered his character and detected 
the craft and duplicity in him, the perjury and falsehood, 
the harsh exclusiveness and treachery.*** And they returned 
to the holy Church and in a large gathering of bishops, 
priests and many of the laity declared all his guile and 
wickedness, which he had kept concealed. And _ they 
mourned and repented because through the persuasions of 
that wily and malicious beast they had forsaken the Church 
for a little time.” 

A little further on he writes: ‘‘ How extraordinary, 
beloved brother, are the change and transformation that 
we have seen take place in him in a short while! For this 
high and mighty person, who bound himself with terrific 
oaths to make no effort after the bishopric, suddenly appears 
amongst us as a bishop, as if shot out by some machine.**” 
For this believer in dogma, this champion of churchly doc- 
trine, in his endeavor to grasp and seize the episcopate, which 
had not been bestowed upon him from above, selected two 


184 Compare this with the confessors’ own statement of their reasons for 
wishing to rejoin the regular organization. Supra, p. 366. 

185 This account of Novatian’s election is obviously libelous and untrust- 
worthy. Cornelius was a credulous person when it came to ugly stories, as even 
Cyprian had reason to know. Supra, pp. 377, 380. He was at special pains here 
to blacken Novatian’s character to Fabius. As a matter of fact, Novatian seems 
to have been disinterested and thoroughly high-minded and conscientious in his 
action. 


384 THE SEE OF PETER 

of his companions, who had forfeited their own salvation, 
and sent them to a small and insignificant corner of Italy 
to hoodwink by some fictitious argument three bishops there, 
who were rustic and simple-minded men. They positively 
and insistently asserted that these bishops must go quickly 
to Rome in order to allay by their mediation, in common 
with other bishops, all the strife that had arisen there. 
Then, when they had come, being, as we have already said, 
very inexperienced in wicked schemes and devices, they 
were locked up with some corrupt persons of the same stripe 
as himself. At the tenth hour, when they were drunk and - 
sick, he compelled them by violence to confer the bishopric 
on him with some counterfeit and invalid imposition of 
hands. Thus, because the office had not come to him, he 
avenged himself by craft and treachery. One of these 
bishops shortly afterwards returned to the church, grieving 
and confessing his transgression, and we gave him com- 
munion as a layman, for all the people present interceded 
for him. To the other bishops we ordained successors and 
sent them to the places where they live. So this avenger 
of the gospel did not know that there should be one bishop 
in a catholic church!*** Yet he was not ignorant — for how 
could he be? —that in our church are forty-six priests,**’ 
seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty- 
two exorcists, readers and doorkeepers,** and fifteen hun- 

186 Supra, p. 366. 

187 Cornelius’ point seems to be that Novatian had against him the whole 
organization of the great Roman church. 

188 This is the famous passage containing the first extant enumeration of the 
seven ranks in the Catholic hierarchy of the order. The titles, priest and deacon, 
had, of course, been used from the beginning, though with shifting significance. 
The limitation of the Roman diaconate to seven, which still holds, is due to the 
statement in Acts, VI, that the apostles first appointed seven to that service. The 
offices of subdeacon and acolyte are mentioned first here and in the writings of 
Cyprian. The incumbents were meant to assist at the altar in the liturgy, prepare 
vessels, lights, wine and bread for the Eucharist, go as messengers to other churches, 
etc. Exorcists appear in the second century but rather as random, inspired volun- 
teers, not, as here, regular officials in a systematic organization. The reader, who 


read from the Scripture in public meetings, was employed in Tertullian’s day. 
De Praescriptione, 41. The doorkeeper or janitor is named here for the first time. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 385 


9 


dred widows and needy persons,” all of whom are fed 
through the Master’s grace and loving kindness. Yet not 
even this large multitude, so essential to the church, nor 
the number who through God’s will are rich and power- 
ful, nor the vast, uncounted mass of our people could de- 
ter him from his rash presumption and recall him to the 
church.” 

And further on he adds the following: ‘ Well, now, 
let us say outright for what deeds or conduct he dared to 
lay claim to the bishopric. Was it because he was brought 
up within the Church and endured many conflicts on her 
behalf and was involved in many dire perils for his religion? 
Not at all. For the instigator of his faith was Satan, who 
entered into and dwelt within him for a long time. Then, 
when he was delivered * by the exorcists, he fell into a 
bad illness and expected certainly to die, and he received 
baptism on the very bed where he was lying, if indeed one 
must say that such a person did receive it. At any rate, 
after he had recovered from his illness, he received none of 
the other rites that according to the rule of the Church are 
required after baptism, namely, the confirmation by the 
bishop. Since he failed to receive that, how could he have 
received the Holy Spirit? ” 

And again, a little later, he says: ‘‘ In his cowardice and 
passion for life he denied that he was a priest during the 
time of persecution. For when he was asked and entreated 
by the deacons to come out of the chamber in which he had 
immured himself, to give aid to the brethren, as far as was 
lawful and possible for a priest to aid the brethren who were 
in danger and needed help, he was so far from responding to 


See A. C. McGiffert’s notes on this passage in his translation of Eusebius, Nicene 
and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. I, p. 288; also supra, p. 353. 

189 On the use that is made of this statement of the number of dependents 
supported by the Roman church to calculate the total membership of the church 
at this juncture, vide supra, p. 353, n. 146. 

190 J.¢., from his demoniac possession. 


386 THE SEE OF PETER 


the deacons’ entreaties that he went away in irritation and 
left them. He said that he meant to be a priest no longer 
and that he was a devotee of another philosophy.” . . . 

Then he crowns all this with the worst of the man’s 
offenses, as follows: ‘‘ After he has finished the oblation 
and is distributing to each person his portion and giving it 
to him, he compels the wretched people to swear instead of 
repeating the blessing. He holds the hands of the recipient 
in both of his own and does not release him until he has 
taken the following oath (I shall give the man’s very 
words): ‘‘ Swear to me, by the blood and body of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, never to desert me and turn to Cornelius.” 
And the unhappy person gets not a taste until he takes the 
vow and, instead of receiving the bread with the word, 
“ Amen,” says: “I will not join Cornelius.”** ... ~ 

At the close of his letter he gives a list of the bishops 
who came to Rome and condemned Novatian’s folly, their 
names and the parish over which each of them presided. 
He enumerates also those who did not come to Rome but 
who signified by letter their assent to the vote of these 
bishops and he records their names and the cities from which 
they each wrote. All this Cornelius says in his letter to 
Fabius, bishop of Antioch... . 

46... [Eusebius gives a list of the letters he has 
found written by Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, among 
which is one to Cornelius of Rome in reply to one on the 
subject of Novatian.*”’| He says in this that he has been 

191 The reader will appreciate this accusation better if he reads in connection 
with it the third century Canons of Hippolytus, which prescribe the liturgy for 
the Lord’s Supper. Canon XIX gives the form to be followed in the distribution. 
“And when the bishop has now broken the bread, let him give a fragment to 
everyone of them, saying: ‘ This is the bread of heaven, the body of Jesus Christ.’ 
And let him that receives say, ‘Amen.’” Quoted in G. Hodges, The Early Church 
from Ignatius to Augustine, p. 115. It is impossible, however, to credit these 
outrageous charges against a man like Novatian. 

192 Eusebius mentions six letters of Dionysius addressed at this time to groups 
of Roman Christians, one so-called “ diaconal letter,” one to the Roman church 


on peace, another to the same on penance, one to the confessors who sided with 
Novatian and two more to the confessors after their restoration to the church. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 387 


invited by Helenus, bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, and others 
of his party, Firmilian, bishop in Cappadocia, and Theoc- 
tistus of Palestine, to meet them at the synod in Antioch, 
where some persons are attempting to ratify the schism of 
Novatian.”* In addition, he writes that he has heard that 
Fabius has fallen asleep and that Demetrianus has been 
elected his successor in the see of Antioch. 


Cyprian, Epistolae, LVII. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ec- 
clesiasticorum Latinorum, III’, 650-656. 


Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Nicomedes, .. .*°* to 
their brother Cornelius, greeting. 

[A new persecution is impending and in the opinion of 
the writers all the repentant lapsed should have absolution. | 

5... At the bidding of the Holy Spirit and the direc- 
tion of the Lord in numerous clear visions, we have deter- 
mined that, inasmuch as the enemy is reported and proved 
to be on the verge of attacking us, we should collect the 
soldiers of Christ within the camp and after an investigation 
into each case give peace to the lapsed or rather, furnish 
arms to men about to face the battle. This resolution we 
believe will commend itself to you also, for you are touched 
with fatherly compassion. But if any of our colleagues 
maintains that peace should not be given to our brothers 
and sisters at the approach of conflict, he shall render to 
the Lord an account in the day of judgment for his harsh 
sentence and inhuman severity. We, as our faith, love and 
anxiety demanded, have made known the burden on our 
minds, namely, that the day of struggle is drawing near, 
that a fierce enemy will soon assail us, that the battle which 


193 This synod of Antioch seems to have resulted in the general condemnation 
of Novatian by the eastern churches. Vide infra, pp. 420, 506, 526. Note that the 
action was recalled by eastern bishops in the next century to prove that the West 
should confirm their sentence on Athanasius. 

193a Forty-two persons in all are named as the senders of this letter, being the 
bishops present at the council held at Carthage in the spring of 253.. 


388 THE SEE OF PETER 


impends will not be as the one before it but much more 
stern and desperate, that this has been often divinely fore- 
told to us and that by the providence and mercy of God 
we are being frequently forewarned. ‘Through his power 
and goodness we who trust in him may be safe, for he who 
in season of peace tells his soldiers of the coming contest 
will, when they fight the battle, give them victory. We bid 
you, dearest brother, ever farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, LX. Text. Op. cit., 691-695. 


Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. 

1 We have been told, dearest brother, of the glorious 
testimonies of your faith and courage and have heard with 
exultation of your noble confession and count ourselves also 
sharers and companions in your merits and renown. For 
since we have one Church, a united mind and indestructible 
harmony, what priest does not rejoice at the praises of his 
fellow priest as if at his own or what brotherhood is not 
glad in the joy of its brethren? I cannot describe to you 
how keen was the happiness here nor how deep the gladness, 
when we learned of your triumph and fortitude and knew 
that you had been the leader in confession there for your 
brethren’s loyalty, so that while you precede them to glory, 
you make many your comrades in glory and while you are 
ready to confess first for them all, you incite them to be a 
people of confessors. We cannot determine what most to 
commend among you, whether your own quick and steadfast 
faith or the devoted love of the brethren. You have pub- 
licly displayed there the courage of the leader bishop; they 
have shown the unity of the follower brethren. There has 
been one spirit, one voice among you. The whole church 
of Rome has confessed... . 

5 We beseech you, dearest brother, with all our power, 
for the mutual love by which we are knit together, that 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 389 


since, through the provident warning of the Lord and the 
Saving counsel of divine compassion, we are admonished that 
the day of our own struggle and conflict is drawing nigh, 
we and all our people cease not from fasting, watching and 
prayer. ... Let us be mindful of one another, of one 
heart and soul! Let us in every place pray for one another! 
Let us relieve suffering and distress in love for one another! 
And whichever among us, by the speedy favor of God, first 
departs hence, let him be constant in love for us in the 
house of the Lord. Let his prayer for our brethren and 
sisters cease not in the presence of the pitiful Father! I bid 
you, dearest brother, ever farewell. 


LUCIUS 


(253-254) 

Lucius, who succeeded Cornelius, was a priest who had con- 
fessed and been banished with him ito Civita Vecchia and was 
ordained bishop in banishment to fill Cornelius’ place. Not 
long after his election, the emperor Gallus was murdered by a 
band of insurgent soldiers and there came another pause in the 
persecution. It had certainly not fulfilled its object of putting an 
end to the plague, which continued unabated to ravage one dis- 
trict after another. The presence of the new emperor, Valerian, 
was urgently demanded in the East, where the Persians were 
capturing Antioch and the Goths roaming through Asia Minor. 
The edicts against the Christians were not revoked but for four 
years there was no further attempt to enforce them. The clergy 
who had been banished under Gallus were even allowed to return 
and pursue their usual vocations without interference. Among 
the exiles to come back to Rome was the new bishop Lucius. 
We know, however, nothing more about him, except that he car- 
ried on the general policy of Cornelius toward those who had 
apostatized.**> In the summer of 254, without waiting for the 
answer to Cyprian’s enthusiastic prayer for his martyrdom, he 


193b Cf. infra, p. 400. 


390 THE SEE OF PETER 


died and was buried in the cemetery of Callistus. Cyprian’s 
letter is the only document that has reached us from his 
pontificate. 


There are no special references for Lucius. 


Cyprian, Epistolae, LXI. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ec- 
clesiasticorum Latinorum, III’, 695-698. 


Cyprian and his colleagues to their brother Lucius, 
greeting. 

1 A short time since, dearest brother, we were glad for 
you, because the favor of God had bestowed upon you a 
double honor, making you both confessor and bishop in the 
government of his Church. And now again we rejoice for 
you and your companions and all the brethren, because the 
benign and gracious protection of the Lord has brought you 
back once more to them in full glory and honor. .. . 

4 Would that there were some way, dearest brother, 
that we who are bound to you by mutual love might be 
present there at your return, so that we too might enjoy 
with the rest the happy fruit of your coming! ... But 
I and my colleagues and all the brethren send this letter to 
you in our stead, dearest brother, to express our gladness 
to you by letter and to offer the faithful services of love. 
Here also we shall not cease in our sacrifices and prayers 
to give thanks to God the Father and Christ his Son, our 
Lord, and to implore and beseech him, who is perfect and 
perfecting, to perfect in you the glorious crown of your 
confession. Mayhap for this he has brought you back, 
that your glory might not be concealed nor your confession 
crowned with martyrdom outside the city. For the victim 
who supplies an example of courage and faith to the brethren 
should be slain in the presence of the brethren. We bid 
you, dearest brother, ever farewell. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 391 


4. THE REASSERTION OF THE CLAIM 


STEPHEN 


(254-257) 

The three years of Stephen’s pontificate passed without a 
renewal of imperial persecution but not on that account without 
a cloud. The two allied problems of the treatment to be allotted 
to the apostates and of the efficacy of priestly absolution to 
pardon mortal sin were, to be sure, regarded as settled in the 
great majority of churches and one synod after another ratified 
the rules for penitential discipline drawn up at Rome, Carthage 
or Alexandria. The Novatianists organized separate minority 
communions of Puritans in various places but only here and there, 
as at Arles, was a bishop of a regular church persuaded to join 
them. If Stephen had been a man of the type of Cornelius, there 
might have been nothing to make his term of office noteworthy 
in papal history. The question that did presently arise of the 
validity of the heretical ceremonies of baptism affected only a 
comparatively insignificant number in the Church and was in 
itself far less fraught with tragedy than that of the permanent 
damnation of the multitudes of lapsed. 

But Stephen was not content to fill the peaceful role of apply- 
ing the principles worked out by his predecessors and of co- 
operating fraternally with the heads of other provincial churches 
in handling new problems as they appeared. Stephen was a 
bishop of the stamp of Victor and Callistus. To his mind Cor- 
nelius and Lucius had erred in following where they should have 
led and in acting as members of the common, codrdinate apos- 
tolate of all the bishops, instead of as the unique heirs of the chief 
apostolate of Peter. We have, unfortunately, nothing entire of 
his own writing but we have a few quotations from his letters and 
a few allusions to his conduct and evidence in plenty of the quick 
reaction in the provinces to his autocratic and centralizing policy. 
As Dionysius of Alexandria said, the Church was at peace until 
he disturbed it. 

We have no record of his election nor of events just after it. 


392 THE SEE OF PETER 


We can only surmise that then or previously he became acquainted 
with some literature that had been composed earlier in the cen- 
tury in support of the new Petrine theory.*** For a while, he 
found no conspicuous opportunity to assert the prerogative that 
he felt to be inherent in his office and that Cornelius and Lucius 
had allowed to lie unregarded. He could hardly undo the settle- 
ment of the problem of the lapsed, much as he might disapprove 
of the method by which the settlement had been achieved. Such 
a step would have meant the disruption of the church over which 
he himself presided and possibly his own deposition at the hands 
of his Romans. But he evinced no interest in efforts abroad to 
complete that settlement in the few districts where it was not 
already in force. Marcian, bishop of Arles in the province of 
Narbonne, had joined the Novatianists and carried many of his 
people with him and his provincial colleagues had taken no de- 
cisive action. Faustinus, bishop of the city of Lyons, and other 
bishops in the province of Lyons wrote to Stephen reporting the 
fact and asking for direction. ‘They believed apparently that 
they themselves had no jurisdiction over a bishop in another 
province and that there was no one in his own province likely to 
cope with him. They turned to the Roman See for advice. 
Stephen either ignored their letters or sent unsatisfactory and 
indifferent replies. The invitation to exert his influence in Gaul 
did not attract him if his influence must go to support the 
measures of Cornelius. | 

Faustinus and his friends finally appealed to Cyprian of 
Carthage, whose personal reputation set him on a high eminence 
and whose see stood second to Rome in the West. Would he 
give them his counsel or would he himself stir up Stephen to 
some suitable response? Cyprian’s letter to Stephen is polite but 
emphatic and scarcely veils his surprise that Stephen should be 
so remiss in his care for the Church and in loyalty to his prede- 
cessors. He outlines for him the correct course of procedure, so 
that ignorance or inexperience may be no excuse for further 
delay. Stephen should write three letters at once, one to the 
bishops of the associated provinces of Gaul, pointing out to them 


194 Supra, Pp. 296-297. 


: 
. 
; 
; 
i 
| 
’ 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 393 


the necessity of excluding Marcian from their synods, the second 
to the Christians of the province of Narbonne and the third to 
those of the city of Arles, admonishing them to shut out Marcian 
from their churches and to set about the process of electing 
another bishop. In a case like this, where the local machinery 
had come to a temporary standstill, the head of the leading 
apostolic church had exercised from of old the elder brother’s 
duty of reminding the local churches how to start it functioning 
again. Jealous as Cyprian was for the independence of the whole 
episcopate, he understood that when bishops themselves were at 
a loss they had a right to expect a word of guidance from the one 
who had behind him the greatest store of prestige and influence. 
If the situation had arisen in Africa or Numidia or Mauretania, 
he himself might have handled it as metropolitan of the principal 
church in that region, but a difficulty in Gaul should certainly 
be straightened out by Rome. 

It seems unlikely that Stephen complied with Cyprian’s sug- 
gestions and more probable that he showed some resentment at 
what he inevitably regarded as an officious attempt by an inferior 
to dictate to a superior. That his unwillingness to pronounce 
against Marcian was not due to any actual sympathy with the 
Novatianist position is proved by his reception of another bishop, 
who had transgressed the regulations of 251 in the direction of 
over-laxity instead of over-rigor. In 255 or 256, we find Cyprian, 
who had evidently come to be looked upon as the refuge of 
brethren in perplexity, sending a letter in his own name and that 
of thirty-six African bishops to the priest and people of Leon and 
the deacon and people of Merida in Spain. Basilides, bishop of 
Leon, and Martial, priest of Merida, had, it appears, apostatized 
during the persecution and had accordingly been deposed and ex- 
communicated by the local churches and a new bishop and priest 
had been regularly elected and installed in their places. Since 
then, both Basilides and Martial had done the required penance 
and been readmitted to communion. Neither one, however, had 
been satisfied with simple readmission. They had demanded also 
full restoration to office, contrary to the provisions of the rules 
adopted by the churches.’*” Basilides had even gone to Rome 

195 Supra, p. 384; infra, p. 402. 


394 THE SEE OF PETER 


and asked for Stephen’s recognition of himself as lawful bishop 
of Leon. This recognition Stephen had proceeded to give on the 
strength of Basilides’ representations without waiting for a report 
from the churches concerned and heedless of the fact that such 
a step on his part constituted a flagrant reversal of the recent 
regulations and created an impasse of rival bishops and factions 
in Spain. Basilides thenceforth would be on the Roman list of 
accredited bishops, with whom communication was kept up and 
from whom travellers’ credentials were accepted. It was as if 
the ruler of a great nation had refused to recognize the legally 
established prince of a tiny nation and had insisted upon treating 
as sovereign a disorderly pretender whom his own people had 
rejected. The Spanish Christians protested fruitlessly to Stephen 
and now turned to Cyprian. This time Cyprian does not hint at 
any possibility of persuading Stephen to take more suitable 
action. He speaks of him civilly but distantly, as if there were 
an estrangement between them that permitted no approaches. 
He scrupulously reminds the Spaniards that they should not 
blame him “who carelessly allowed himself to be deceived ” 
so hardly as the one who deceived him. On the other hand, he 
advises them not to be moved by Stephen’s decision nor to eject 
the bishop they had chosen in obedience to the rules promulgated | 
by Cornelius and “all other bishops everywhere in the whole 
world.” For the first time this law-abiding advocate of episcopal 
solidarity counsels a small provincial community to ignore the 
bishop of its venerable mother church. But he appeals from a 
living bishop, whose arbitrariness threatens the unity of the 
brethren, to his dead predecessor and to the fellowship of the 
Church everywhere. He matches one Roman against the other. 

With this, the Spanish complication also disappears from our 
pages and we are faced instead with the major issues of Stephen’s 
pontificate, the two questions of the efficacy of the sacrament of 
baptism when administered by heretics and of the power of the 
Roman bishop to compel the Church at large to submit to his 
solitary decree in such a matter,*® regardless of inherited tradi- 


196 Tt is interesting to observe in the third century apocryphal letter of 
Clement to James, which, in the opinion of many scholars, was the work of a 
Roman, that the power to bind and loose is interpreted by Peter as meaning the 
power of decree. Supra, p. 164. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 395 


tions and of previous legislation by local episcopal councils. The 
Novatianist schism brought the question of heretical baptism to 
the fore during the year 255. Since the beginning there had 
been converts to orthodoxy from sects regarded as heretical and 
in the loose state of early ecclesiastical organization there had 
grown up diverse ways of receiving them. In Asia and Egypt, 
it was the custom to rebaptize the convert on the ground that the 
baptism he had received as a heretic would not avail to cleanse 
from sin. At Rome, on the contrary, except during the pontifi- 
cate of Callistus,*°’ it had been generally maintained that the 
sacrament, when performed in the name of the Trinity, contained 
in itself the miraculous, revivifying efficacy, no matter whose 
hand sprinkled the water or whose lips uttered the words, and 
that to repeat it was sacrilege. It was sufficient, therefore, to 
receive the convert with the simple ceremony of imposition of 
hands. In Africa, the practice seems to have varied, following 
sometimes the eastern precedent and sometimes the Roman. 
One synod in the past had pronounced definitely in favor of the 
eastern habit *** but there was still no uniformity. 

It is, of course, possible that Stephen himself first started the 
dispute with a peremptory demand that the Asiatic church bring 
its methods into line with those countenanced by Rome,**** but it 
soon came to be a question of more than Asia. Cyprian, in 
answer to several inquiries, took the whole subject under delib- 
erate consideration and concluded that the custom of Rome was 
wrong and that one could not logically persist in classing schis- 
matics and heretics as outsiders from the Church and at the same 
time concede that in them lay the power of the Holy Ghost to 
remit sins. He brought the matter up before a synod of thirty 
bishops from the province of Africa and in their company went 
over the baptismal formula and its underlying assumptions. The 
assembly voted, in agreement with him, that heretics must here- 
after be rebaptized. Stephen’s tone may have antagonized them 
and the eastern position was certainly more consistent with the 
orthodox standpoint toward heretics in general. Before dissolv- 

197 Supra, p. 311 and n. 65; infra, p. 407. 


198 Infra, p. 403. 
198a Vide the passage from the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria, infra, p. 422. 


396 THE SEE OF PETER 


ing, the synod sent notice of its resolution to the bishops of the 
adjacent province of Numidia. Cyprian himself wrote to Quin- 
tus, a bishop of Mauretania, explaining what had been done. He 
refrained from mentioning Stephen by name but recalled, in 
phrases that were plainly intended to be significant, the reason- 
ableness of the apostle Peter, his willingness to accept instruction 
and his abstention from arrogance. As a matter of fact, Cyprian 
and his bishops had acted freely as a self-governing branch of the 
Church, precisely as they had done in adopting their regulations 
for the lapsed.*®® But this time their right to self-government 
had been threatened and they were on the defensive. 

The bishops of Numidia may have indicated a wish to meet 
and share also in the debate. At all events, Cyprian was soon 
afterwards presiding over a second synod of seventy-one mem- 
bers, comprising bishops from Africa and Numidia. Again they 
scanned the gospel pages and reasoned from theory and tradition 
and arrived at the conclusion that heretical baptism was futile 
and worthless but that each bishop should be left to do what he 
thought right in his own flock. Their letter to Stephen was 
couched in the customary, respectful terms but ended on a note 
that clearly meant defiance. The Africans were not so addicted 
to old opinions that they could not change for the better nor did 
they lay down laws for anyone else. Every bishop was at liberty 
to choose his own course and was responsible only to the Lord. 
Stephen’s response to all this was a positive statement of his 
power, as supreme lawgiver or ‘‘ bishop of the bishops,” 7° to 
prohibit all innovations in dogma or practice and to command 
the churches on pain of his excommunication to admit converts 
from heresy with the simple laying on of hands. The question 
of the value of heretical baptism became forthwith entangled 
with the sharper question of the nature of the constitution of the 
Church and the location of sovereignty within it. Stephen had 
thrown down the gauntlet to the whole system of federated, 
coordinate episcopacy. 

199 Supra, Pp. 370. 

200 This title had been applied earlier by Tertullian in irony to Callistus 


or Zephyrinus. Supra, p. 301. It is impossible to tell whether or not any of these 
bishops claimed it seriously for himself. 


Ee ee See ee ae 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 397 


Cyprian replied by summoning on the first of September, 256, 
a third synod of eighty-seven bishops from all three provinces of 
the northwest coast, Numidia, Africa and Mauretania. They 
met, fully aware that their vote for or against the baptism of 
converted heretics would be in reality a vote for or against a 
breach with Rome. Luckily a memorandum of this council, with 
a short résumé of Cyprian’s leading speech and of the remarks 
of each bishop as he cast his vote, has by some rare chance been 
preserved. They went unanimously against Stephen. He, on 
his part, refused to meet the delegates sent as usual to carry him 
the report of the meeting and forbade members of the Roman 
community to receive them into their houses or to offer them 
the ancient Christian services of hospitality. He then formally 
excommunicated the churches of the African provinces and 
summoned the bishops of the East *°* to abstain henceforth 
from rebaptism and from intercourse with the “ false apostle,” 
Cyprian. Certain bishops from Cilicia, Galatia and Cappadocia, 
those same regions of Asia Minor which had resisted Victor’s effort 
to interfere with their Easter tradition and impose an undesired 
uniformity,*** sent a definite refusal and were excommunicated 
also. In dismay, Dionysius of Alexandria tried to expostulate, 
as Irenaeus had done sixty years before. He wrote both to 
Stephen and to several of the prominent priests in Rome to 
explain that second baptism was no innovation to the East but 
rather its inveterate custom, that it was possible to differ as to 
the necessity of the rite and still to preserve the Church’s peace 
and that to destroy the harmony that had just been attained 
after the Novatianist disturbances meant nothing but disaster. 
But Stephen was not to be shaken. He would isolate himself 
until, as Firmilian said, it seemed as if he were the outcast and 
not they, but he would maintain the supreme authority of Peter. 

To Cyprian, the champion of unity, the situation must have 
been unspeakably painful. To find himself after these years of 
confident, unassailable regularity thrust into the position of leader 
of an outlawed faction! His distress and exasperation appear in 


201 The letter to the church in Arabia, of which Dionysius had heard, may 
have been in the style of a pastoral. The Arabian church was apparently de- 
pendent on Roman help. Infra, p. 420. 202 Supra, p. 280. 


398 THE SEE OF PETER 


the few letters that survive from this period. He would have kept 
the peace with Stephen, regardless of the latter’s personal delin- 
quencies or of his discordant opinions on baptism. But Stephen 
would have no such easy-going peace and Cyprian could not 
submit himself and the African church to Stephen’s dictatorship 
without violating what were in his eyes the fundamental principles 
of his episcopate and betraying his God-given responsibilities. 
Cut off from the apostolic church with which Carthaginian inter- 
course had always been the closest, he turned for comfort and 
justification to the ancient churches of the East who were also 
in opposition to Rome. We have none of his letters to the 
eastern bishops but we have a reply that came to him in the 
spring, perhaps, of 257, from Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in 
Cappadocia. 7 * 

Firmilian was one of the influential bishops of Asia, a 
promoter of the synod of Antioch in 253, which had settled 
the Novatianist question for that part of the Empire.** Like 
Dionysius of Alexandria and others of his colleagues, he had 
been a pupil of Origen, who had expressly repudiated the theory 
that the keys of Peter could ever become the personal insignia 
of any single pontiff.2°* In Firmilian’s letter, the pent-up irri- 
tation of the venerable East at the overweening attitude of 
Rome seems for once to find vent.*”* The Roman church, he 
says, claims the direct sanction of the apostles for everything 
that it does, but it undoubtedly has departed from original tradi- 


tion in the celebration of Easter, as well as in other particulars. 


Its observances are not those of Jerusalem. In this instance, it 
has contravened the written teachings of its boasted authorities, 
Peter and Paul, as contained in their Epistles. As for Stephen, 
who brags so loudly of his succession to the chair of Peter, the 
rock on which the Church is built, what is he doing in his irascible 
conceit but setting up other rocks on which the Church may split 
and founder? The power to bind and loose, bestowed by Christ 
upon Peter and all the apostles, has come down to all bishops and 


203 Supra, p. 387. For more information about Firmilian, see Eusebius, His- 
toria Ecclesiastica, VII, 30, 3-5. 

204 Supra, pp. 317-322. 

205 It is interesting to compare his vexation with that of the Asiatic bishops 
who wrote to Pope Julius from Antioch in 342. 


P s 
eh i el 


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THE RISE OF THE SEE 399 


remains in the one true Church. It is neither to be monopolized 
by one bishop nor to be diffused abroad among the heretics. 
Firmilian’s interpretation of the commission to Peter is not, one 
perceives, the subtle, spiritual explanation of his master Origen 
but the simple, institutional idea, common to Cyprian and other 
independent bishops of the day. As Firmilian remarks, Stephen 
did himself and Cyprian one service when he brought them 
together. 

Whether Stephen would ever have gone on to excommunicate 
the apostolic sees of Alexandria, Antioch or Jerusalem for non- 
compliance with his decree we do not know. Dionysius’ tactful 
and conciliatory remonstrances made an impression upon the 
Roman priests, to whom he wrote a second time at greater length. 
Disquieting rumors arose of Valerian’s intention to revive the 
persecution and once more an impulse ran through the Church 
to forget dissension and strengthen itself to endure. Stephen 
himself may have been too ill to push his aggressive tactics 
further, for at the end of July he died. His time was too short 
to fight out the battle to which he addressed himself but he, at 
least, set squarely before the Church of the Empire the Petrine 
claims of the Roman bishopric and demanded their acceptance 
as a price of salvation. 


On Stephen, see the discussion in E. W. Benson, Cyprian, his Life and 
his Times (London, 1897); O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (trans. by T. Shahan, 
St. Louis, 1908), §56, 6; L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian 
Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 vols., London, 1910-1924), 
Vol. I, pp. 303 sqq.; B. J. Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols., 
Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. I, pp. 464-474. 


Cyprian, Epistolae, LXVIII. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, III’, 744-749. 


Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting. 

1 Faustinus, our colleague who is at Lyons, has once 
and again written to me, dearest brother, to inform me of 
what I know he has certainly told you also, as have the 
rest of our fellow bishops too in that province, namely, 


400 THE SEE OF PETER 


that Marcian at Arles has joined Novatian and has with- 
drawn from the unity of the catholic Church and from 
the harmony of our priestly body and has adopted the 
wicked and cruel heretical doctrine, that servants of God, 
who are penitent and grief-stricken and who entreat the 
Church with tears and mourning and sorrow, should be 
excluded from consolation and help, that the wounded 
should be refused admission to heal their wounds and left 
without hope of peace and communion and cast out to be- 
come the prey of wolves and victims of the devil. 

2 Wherefore, you ought to write full directions to our 
fellow bishops in Gaul, not to permit any longer the way- 
ward and insolent Marcian, the foe of divine mercy and 
our brothers’ salvation, to insult our assembly. .. . 

3 Do you also send letters to the province and to the 
people of Arles, to the effect that they excommunicate 
Marcian and appoint another in his place, so that Christ’s 
flock, which today is scattered, wounded and despised by 
him, may be gathered together. Let it be reason sufficient 
that many of our brethren have died there in these past 
years without peace. So let aid be sent to the rest who 
still survive and who grieve day and night, imploring the 
compassion of God and their father and begging for comfort 
from our abundance. .. . 

5 The glorious honor of our predecessors, the blessed 
martyrs,’ Cornelius and Lucius, should be upheld and 
while we all revere their memory, much more, dearest 
brother, ought you, who were chosen their vicar and suc- 
cessor, to revere and uphold it with the weight of your 
authority. Now they, who were filled with the Lord’s spirit 
and glorious in martyrdom, decided that peace should be 
given to the lapsed and said in their letters that after due 
penance the fruits of communion and peace should not be 


206 The word “martyr” is used here apparently of a ‘‘ confessor” who had 
died. Cornelius and Lucius were not martyrs in our sense. Supra, p. 269, n. 71. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 401 


withholden from them. This has also been always and 
everywhere the opinion of us all. ... Inform us exactly 
who is appointed at Arles in place of Marcian, so that we 
may know to whom to direct our brethren and to whom to 
write ourselves. I bid you, dearest brother, ever farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, LXVII. Text. Op. cit., 735-743. 


Cyprian, . . .°’ to the priest Felix and the people of 
Leon and Astorga and to the deacon Elius and the people 
of Merida, their brethren in the Lord, greeting. 

[Acknowledgment of a letter of complaint against 
Basilides, bishop of Leon and Astorga, and Martial, priest 
of Merida, who persist in exercising their respective offices, 
though guilty of compromise with idolatry and betrayal of 
the faith. The people can certainly get no benefit from 
wicked priests and may even be contaminated by them. | 

5 Therefore, the practice derived from divine tradition 
and apostolic custom must be strictly upheld and preserved, 
as it is indeed by us and almost all the provinces, namely, 
that for the correct solemnization of an ordination all the 
neighboring bishops of the same province shall assemble with 
the people for whom the prelate is to be ordained and that 
the bishop shall be chosen in the presence of the people, 
since they know most thoroughly the life of every man and 
have learned each one’s character from his conversation. 
This practice, we observe, was followed among you in the 
ordination of our colleague, Sabinus, so that the bishopric 
was conferred upon him with the assent of the whole brother- 
hood and by the judgment of the bishops who met together 
in person or wrote to you about him, and hands were laid 
upon him to take the place of Basilides.*”* The ordination, 

207 This letter was sent in the name of Cyprian and thirty-six others. Vide 
supra, DP. 393. 

208 J.¢., the local church or brotherhood approved the bishop who was elected 


and “ordained” (a.e., consecrated) by the other bishops of the province. The 
Council of Nicea required the ratification of the metropolitan also. Infra, p. 486. 


402 THE SEE OF PETER 


being rightly performed, cannot be rescinded by the fact 
that Basilides, after his sins had been detected and further 
revealed by the confession of his own conscience, went to 
Rome and deceived Stephen, our colleague, who was a long 
way off and ignorant of what had happened and of the truth, 
and intrigued to be unjustly reinstated in the episcopate, 
from which he had been justly deposed. This means merely 
that the sins of Basilides have been multiplied rather than 
absolved, for to his previous wrongdoing he has added the 
crime of deception and fraud. Nor is the one who carelessly 
allowed himself to be beguiled so blameworthy as the un- 
speakable impostor who beguiled him. .. . 

6... It is vain for such men to attempt to seize the 
bishopric, for it is obvious that persons of that sort cannot 
govern the Church of Christ and are unfit to offer sacrifices 
to God. In addition, our colleague Cornelius, a just and 
peace-loving priest, honored with martyrdom by the favor 
of the Lord, ordained some time ago in company with us 
and all other bishops everywhere in the whole world, that 
such men might be admitted to do penance but that they 
were excluded from clerical ordination and the office of 
priest)... 


Ibid., Epistolae, LXX. Text. Op. cit., 766-770. 


Cyprian, . . . [and thirty others] to Januarius,.. . 
[and seventeen others *”’], greeting. 
[A discussion of the problem whether or not converted 


heretics should be baptized on their entrance into the true . 4 


Church. | 

2 But even the question which is put during baptism 
is witness of the truth. For when we say: “ Do you be- 
lieve in eternal life and the forgiveness of sins through the 
holy Church? ” we mean that forgiveness of sins is not 


209 J.¢., members of a synod of thirty bishops of the province of Africa to 
the bishops of Numidia. Vide supra, pp. 395-396. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 403 


granted except in the Church and that among heretics, 
where there is no Church, sins are not forgiven... . 

3... . Now it cannot be partly invalid and partly valid. 
If he can baptize, he can also give the Holy Spirit. But if 
he cannot give the Holy Spirit, because standing without 
the pale he is not with the Holy Spirit, neither can he 
baptize a person who comes to him, because there is one 
baptism and one Holy Spirit and one Church, founded by 
our Lord Christ upon Peter for the beginning and principle 
of unity. . . 


Ibid., Epistolae, LXXI. Text. Op. cit., 771-774. 


Cyprian to his brother Quintus,’ greeting. 

[He has been holding a council of bishops, who have 
agreed with him on the subject of heretical baptism. | 

3 Furthermore, precedent should not be the controlling 
consideration but reason should prevail. For even Peter, 
whom the Lord first chose and upon whom he built his 
Church, when Paul later disputed with him over circum- 
cision, did not claim insolently any prerogative for himself © 
nor make any arrogant assumptions nor say that he had the 
primacy and ought to be obeyed, especially by novices and 
latecomers. Nor did he despise Paul on the ground that 
he had once been a persecutor of the Church. But he ad- 
mitted the truth of Paul’s judgment and accepted his law- 
ful reasoning, setting us thus an example of concord and 
patience, that we should not obstinately love our own 
Opinions but should instead adopt as our own whatever 
useful and wholesome suggestions are made at any time 
by our brethren and colleagues, provided they are lawful 
mmerigot. 2... 

| Under Agrippinus, one of his predecessors, an African 
council ruled against accepting the baptism of heretics. | 


210 Quintus was a bishop in Mauretania. 


404 THE SEE OF PETER 
Ibid., Epistolae, LXXII. Text. Op. cit., 775-778. 


Cyprian and the others” to their brother Stephen, 
greeting. 

1 We have found it necessary, dearest brother, to as- 
semble and hold a council of many bishops, meeting together 
in order to arrange and pass upon certain matters by com- 
mon debate and deliberation, and during this council we 
have proposed and settled many questions. But the prin- 
cipal decision to be reported from it to you and referred 
to your dignity and wisdom is that which has most bearing 
on priestly authority and on the unity and grandeur which 
by divine ordinance belong to the catholic Church, namely, 
that persons who have been washed elsewhere, outside the 
Church, and polluted by the stain of holy water at the hands 
of heretics and schismatics must be baptized when they 
come to us and to the Church, which is one. For it is of 
trifling value to lay hands upon them for the receiving of 
the Holy Spirit, unless they receive also the Church’s bap- 
tism. . . . For example, when in the house of Cornelius, 
the centurion, the Holy Spirit had descended upon the gen- 
tiles who were there, fervent in the glow of faith and be- 
lieving on the Lord with all their hearts, so that filled with 
the Spirit they blessed God in divers tongues, none the less, 
the blessed apostle Peter, mindful of the divine command 
and gospel, gave orders that even they, who were already 
full of the Holy Spirit, should be baptized, so that noth- 
ing should be omitted and apostolic authority should up- 
hold in every respect the law of the divine command and 
gospel. That the act of the heretics is not baptism and 
that no advantage can be taken of the grace of Christ by 
the enemies of Christ, I have recently and carefully ex- 
plained in a letter which I have written on the subject to 
our colleague Quintus in Mauretania.” 


210a A synod of seventy-one bishops from Africa and Numidia. 
211 Je., the letter just preceding. 


The same is made — 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 405 


plain in a letter which our colleagues sent earlier to their 
fellow bishops in charge in Numidia. I append hereto copies 
of both letters. 

2 In addition, we have definitely ruled, dearest brother, 
by general consent and authority, that all priests and 
deacons who were first ordained in the catholic Church 
and afterwards turned faithless and rebellious against the 
Church, and who have been promoted to office among the 
heretics by profane ordination at the hands of pseudo- 
bishops and antichrists in disobedience to Christ’s com- 
mandment and have undertaken to offer false and blas- 
phemous sacrifices outside, in opposition to the one divine 
altar, these men, when they return to us, are to be re- 
admitted only on this condition, that they receive com- 
munion as laymen and think it sufficient to be restored to 
peace after having been enemies of peace. .. . 

3 We have informed you, dearest brother, of these 
resolutions for the general honor and our sincere love, in 
the confidence that, since they are both devout and right, 
they will commend themselves to your true faith and devo- 
tion. We are, moreover, aware that there are some who 
refuse to abandon a position once taken or to alter a policy 
without difficulty but who still preserve the bond of peace 
and concord with their colleagues, while retaining certain 
convictions of their own at which they have already arrived. 
Therefore, we coerce no one and lay down the law to no one, 
for every bishop has freedom of decision according to his 
own will in the conduct of his church and will give an account 
of his behavior to the Lord. We bid you, dearest brother, 
ever farewell. 


Ibid., Epistolae, LXXIII. Text. Op. cit., 778-790. 


Cyprian to his brother Jubaianus, greeting. 
[He has held a second council of seventy-one bishops 


406 THE SEE OF PETER 


from the provinces of Africa and Numidia, which also has 
voted against the recognition of heretical baptism. | 

7 But it is plain where and by whom remission of sins 
can be granted, that is to say, the remission granted in 
baptism. First of all, the Lord bestowed that power upon 
Peter, on whom he built the Church and whom he appointed 
and pronounced the source of unity, that whatsoever he 
loosed should be loosed on earth. And after his resurrection, 
he spoke to the apostles also, saying: “‘ As the Father hath 
sent me, even so send I you.” *”* And when he had said this, 
he breathed on them and said unto them: “ Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
unto them and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” 
Whereby we understand that only they who are placed over 
the Church and established by gospel law and the Lord’s 
ordinance are permitted to baptize and to grant remission 
of sins and that outside the Church nothing can be either 
bound or loosed, for there is no one there who can either 
bind or loose anything. .. . 

21... [Heretics cannot be saved even by martyrdom. | 

So there can be no common baptism for us and the 
heretics, since we have no common God the Father nor 
Christ the Son nor Holy Spirit nor faith nor even Church, 
and for that reason persons must be baptized who come out 
of heresy into the Church... . 

26 We have written these few words to you, dearest 
brother, to the best of our poor ability, laying no command 
on anyone nor passing hasty judgment to prevent any bishop 
from doing what he thinks right, for each one has free con- 
trol over his own decision. So far as in us lies, we start 
no quarrel with our colleagues and fellow bishops over 
heretics but we keep in divine harmony with them and in 
the peace of the Lord. . . . [He has been writing a treatise 


on patience. | 
212 John, XX, 21-23. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 407 


Ibid., Epistolae, LXXIV. Text. Op. cit., 799-800. 


Cyprian to his brother Pompey,” greeting. 

1 Although in the letters of which we sent you copies, 
dearest brother, we have fully expressed all that is to be said 
on the baptism of heretics, yet, since you have asked me to 
notify you what answer our brother Stephen returned to our 
letter, I am sending you a copy of his reply. On reading it 
you will more and more appreciate his error in endeavoring 
to defend the cause of heretics against Christians and the 
Church of God. For among the other arrogant or irrele- 
vant or inconsistent statements which he has made, without 
proper instruction and caution, he has inserted this: ‘‘ If then 
any persons come to you from any heresy whatsoever, let 
there be no innovation beyond the rule that has been be- 
queathed to us, which is, that hands be laid on them to 
repentance; for the heretics themselves do not baptize 
persons who come to them from another of their own sects 
but simply admit them to communion.” 

2 He has forbidden us to baptize in the Church a person 
coming from any heresy whatsoever; that is, he has pro- 
nounced the baptisms of all the heretics to be right and 
lawful. And inasmuch as the separate heresies have sepa- 
rate baptisms and different sins, he, holding communion with 
the baptisms of them all, has heaped up all their sins in one 
mass into his own bosom. He has issued orders that “ there 
be no innovation beyond the rule that has been bequeathed 
to us,” as if he who maintains unity and insists upon one 
baptism for the one Church were committing an innovation 
and not rather he who is oblivious of unity and accepts the 
false pollution of profane washing. Whence comes the rule 
that is bequeathed to us? Is it not based upon the authority 
of the Lord and the gospel and does it not come from the 
instructions and epistles of the apostles? ... No one 

213 Pompey was an African bishop who had been in Rome. Supra, p. 358. 


408 THE SEE OF PETER 


ought to defame the apostles by saying that they approved 
of heretics’ baptisms or held communion with them without 
the Church’s baptism, when the apostles wrote such bitter 
condemnation of heretics, even before the more flagrant 
heretical sects had broken out and before Marcion, the 
Pontian, had emerged from Pontus, whose master Cerdon 


came to Rome under Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop © 


214 


of the city 

4 An excellent and legitimate rule evidently is the one 
proposed by our brother Stephen, supplying us with a fine 
authority! For to this passage in his letter he adds the 
words: “‘ for the heretics themselves do not baptize persons 
who come to them from another of their own sects but simply 
admit them to communion.”” To this depth of calamity the 
Church of God and the spouse of Christ has sunk, that she is 
to follow the example of heretics, that in celebrating the 
heavenly sacraments the light is to take pattern from the 
darkness and Christians are to act as do the antichrists! 
What blindness of mind is this, what wickedness, to refuse 
to recognize the unity of the faith which proceeds from 
God the Father and from the rule of Jesus Christ our Lord 
and God! ... 

7... But as the birth of Christians takes place in 
baptism and as the generation and sanctification of baptism 
belong solely to the spouse of Christ, who is able to conceive 
and bear sons spiritually to God, where and of whom and 
to whom is he born who is not a son of the Church? How 
shall he have God as his father before he has the Church 
as his mother? Yet, although no heresy whatsoever nor 
even a schism can possess the sanctification of saving bap- 
tism outside of the Church, the unshakable obstinacy of our 
brother Stephen has reached such a pitch that he insists 
that sons are born to God even from the baptisms of Marcion 


214 This information about Marcion and Cerdon Cyprian took probably from 
Tertullian, who got it from Irenaeus. Supra, pp. 258, 272. 


Se ee eee, eee ce a ee ae: ee re 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 409 
or Valentinus or Apelles or other blasphemers against God 
the Father,’ and that remission of sins is granted in the 
name of Jesus Christ in the very spot where blasphemies are 
uttered against the Father and against our Lord God Christ! 

8 Under such circumstances, dearest brother, we ought, 
on behalf of the faith and the sanctity of our priestly office, 
to consider whether the account of a priest of God who up- 
holds and approves and accepts the baptism of blasphemers 
can stand in the day of judgment. . . . Does he give honor 
to God, who is a friend of heretics, an enemy to Christians, 
and who maintains that priests of God who guard the truth 
of Christ and the unity of the Church should be excommuni- 
cated? ety, 

10 It happens, however, that a man of presumptuous 
and stubborn zeal will defend his own wrong and false views 
rather than yield to another’s that are right and true. Fore- 
seeing this, the blessed apostle Paul writes to Timothy and 
admonishes him that a bishop shall not strive nor be con- 
tentious but gentle and teachable.*** And he is teachable 
who is mild and gentle and has patience to learn. Bishops 
need not only to teach but also to learn, for he teaches better 
who daily increases and advances and learns better... . 
If we return to the Master and Source of the divine rule, 
human error disappears, the nature of the heavenly sacra- 
ments is understood and whatever has lain obscure in the 
shadowy cloud of darkness is made clear in the light of 
truth. Even so, if a conduit carrying water, which has 
always before flowed freely and abundantly, suddenly fails, 
do we not go to the spring to discover there the reason for 
the failure? . . . This same thing the priests of God who 
follow the divine commands ought now to do and if in any 
wise a truth has wavered or faltered, we ought to return 

215 These three were prominent in Gnostic sects that denounced the Jehovah 


of the Old Testament as cruel and unjust. Supra, p. 266, n. 65. 
216 JI Timothy, II, 24. 


410 THE SEE OF PETER 


to its source in the Lord and to the gospel and the apostolic 
rule and find there the guide for our conduct, where the 
command originated and had its source. 

11... Peter himself, when explaining and urging us 
to unity, taught us that we could be saved only through 
one baptism in the one Church. “ There were few,” he said, 
‘in the ark of Noah, to wit, eight souls who were saved 
by water, as ye also are saved likewise by baptism.” . . . 

12 This, dearest brother, is our practice and belief after 
examination and scrutiny of the truth, that all who turn to 
the Church from any heresy should be baptized by the one 
lawful baptism, except those who were earlier baptized 
in the Church before they joined the heretics. The latter 
on their return, after doing penance, should be received by 
imposition of hands alone and restored to the fold whence 
they have wandered from their shepherd. I bid you, dearest 
brother, ever farewell. : 


Third Council of Carthage, Acta. Text. Opera Cypriani, 
ed. by W. Hartel, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum, IIT", 435-444. 


When, on the first of September, many bishops, as well 
as priests and deacons, had assembled together at Carthage 
from the provinces of Africa, Numidia and Mauretania, in © 
the presence of a great number of the people, . . . Cyprian 
said: “ You have heard, dearly beloved colleagues, the letter 
which our fellow bishop Jubaianus has written me, asking 
our poor opinion of the irregular and profane baptism of 
the heretics, and also my reply to him,”* to the effect that 
once and again and invariably we have decided that heretics 
who come into the Church must be baptized and sanctified 
by the Church’s baptism. . . . It is now proper that we, 
each one, state our opinion on this subject, judging no man 

217 I Peter, III, 20-21. 218 Supra, p. 405. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 4II 


and denying no man the right of communion if he differ 
from us. For no one among us sets himself up as a bishop 
of the bishops,’ or by tyranny and terror forces his col- 
leagues to compulsory obedience, seeing that every bishop 
in the freedom of his liberty and power possesses the right 
to his own mind and can no more be judged by another than 
he himself can judge another. We must all await the judg- 
ment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who singly and alone has 
power both to appoint us to the government of his Church 
and to judge our acts therein.” .. . 

[There follow the names of eighty-six bishops, with a 
brief summary of each man’s speech. We give one illustra- 
tion, number 17. | 

. . . Fortunatus of Thuccabor said: 

‘¢ Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, son of God the Father 
and Creator, built his Church upon Peter, not upon heresy, 
and gave to the bishops, not to the heretics, the power to bap- 
tize. Wherefore, persons outside the Church, who oppose 
Christ and scatter abroad his sheep and his flock, cannot 
apart from us administer baptism.” 

[The sentiment was unanimous in favor of rebaptism. | 


Cyprian, Epistolae, LXXV. Text. Op. cit., III’, 810-827. 


Firmilian *° to Cyprian, his brother in the Lord, 
greeting. 

1 We have received, dearest brother, by the deacon 
- whom you sent, our beloved Rogatian, the letter which you 
addressed to us, and have rendered most hearty thanks 
to God that it has come to pass that we, who are distant 
from one another in body, are as united in spirit as if we 
were not only living in one country but even dwelling side 
by side in the selfsame house. .. . 


219 On this phrase vide supra, pp. 223, 231, 301. 
220 On Firmilian vide supra, p. 398; infra, pp. 420, 437-438. 


4I2 THE SEE OF PETER 


2... For this we may thank Stephen, because his 
cruelty has brought it about that we receive this proof of 
your faith and wisdom. However, although it is through 
Stephen that we have obtained the grace of this favor, 
Stephen has done nothing to deserve favor or grace. No 
more can Judas be esteemed as the author of a vast good, 
because of the perfidy and treachery whereby he wrought 
evil to the Savior, even though through him the world and 
the gentile peoples were delivered by the passion of the Lord. 

3 But let us disregard for the moment the action of 
Stephen, lest while recalling his effrontery and insolence, we 
consume too much time in mourning over his offense. 
[He is happy to find Cyprian in perfect accord with himself 
on the subjects of the lapsed and of heretical baptism. He 
himself has held local councils to discuss all these important 
topics and has committed Cyprian’s letter to memory. | 

5 And now, as this messenger you sent is in haste to 
return to you and winter is threatening, we write such 
answer as we can to your letter. As regards what Stephen 
has said, that the apostles forbade the administration of 
baptism to persons who were converted from heresy and 
transmitted this rule to be observed by posterity, you have 
made the perfect rejoinder, that no one can be so foolish 
as to believe that the apostles transmitted such a rule, since 
it is well known that these accursed and detestable heresies 
arose after their time. For Marcion, the pupil of Cerdon, 
we know introduced his sacrilegious ideas against God at 
a period later than the apostles and iba years after 
Cielo oe 

6 But anyone may see that the Romans do not adhere 
in all respects to the rule handed down from the beginning 
and that their claim to the authority of the apostles is un- 

221 Firmilian enumerates the prominent Gnostics whom Cyprian mentioned 


in his letter to Pompey and probably cited again in his lost letter to Firmilian, 
to which this is a reply. 


: 
a 
i 
7 
; 
F. 
; 
/ 
, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 413 


warranted. For in the celebration of Easter and many other 
divine and sacramental ordinances one may notice certain 
divergences among them and also that all customs are not 
observed by them as they are observed at Jerusalem. As in 
most other provinces, there are many differences, corre- 
sponding to the differences in places and men. Yet there 
has never on this account been a departure from the peace 
and unity of the catholic Church. Such a departure Stephen 
has now presumed to make, by breaking the peace with you, 
which his predecessors always maintained with you in 
mutual love and honor. Furthermore, he defames hereby 
the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, saying that they them- 
selves handed down his rule, whereas in their epistles they 
execrated heretics and warned us to shun them. It is ob- 
vious that this rule of his is human, for it upholds heretics 
and declares that they have the baptism which belongs to 
the Church alone. 

7 Your reply was excellent on the point which Stephen 
made in his letter of argument, that the heretics them- 
selves were agreed on baptism and did not baptize those who 
came to them from another sect but simply held communion 
with them, as we likewise ought to do. On this point, al- 
though you have shown conclusively enough that it is pre- 
posterous for anyone to imitate the misguided, we might say 
in addition, — out of the much there is to be said, — that it 
is not strange if the heretics do this, for even when they 
differ on various minor details, they are of one and the same 
mind on the most important matter, which is blasphemy of 
their’Creator. ... 

8 And when Stephen and those who side with him argue 
that remission of sins and the second birth can follow upon 
baptism by heretics, with whom even they themselves admit 
there is no Holy Ghost, they should reflect and realize that 
spiritual birth cannot take place without the Spirit. For 
which reason the blessed apostle Paul baptized anew with 


A414 THE SEE OF PETER 


spiritual baptism those whom John had baptized before the 
Lord sent the Holy Ghost.”** When we find Paul, after 
John’s baptism, baptizing his disciples a second time, why 
do we hesitate to baptize those who come from heresy into 
the Church after their unlawful and profane washing? Un- 
less perhaps Paul was inferior to the bishops of these days 
and they can give the Holy Ghost to the heretics who come 
to them by imposition of hands merely, but Paul was not 
competent to give the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands 
to those whom John had baptized, until he had first baptized 
them with the Church’s baptism! 


16 But how deep is the error, how profound the blind- 
ness of him who says that remission of sins may be granted 
by the synagogue of heretics and who remains not on the 
foundation of the single Church, which was set once by 
Christ upon a rock, we may perceive from the fact that 
Christ said to Peter alone: ‘‘ Whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou 
shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Again in 
the gospel Christ breathed on the apostles alone and said: 
‘“‘ Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosoever sins ye remit, they 
are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain, they 
are retained.” Thus the power of remitting sins was 
granted to the apostles and to the churches which they 
established, when sent forth by Christ, and to the bishops 
who succeeded them by ordination in their stead.** But 
the enemies of the one catholic Church, in which we are 
members, and the foes of us, who have succeeded to the 
apostles, lay claim against us to unlawful priesthoods and 
erect profane altars. ... 

17 In view of this I am right to be indignant with 


222 Acts, XIX, 1-6. 

223 This passage shows that Firmilian in Asia held the same theory as Cyprian, 
regarding the power to bind and loose as something shared equally by the whole 
episcopate. Vide supra, p. 406. 


. 
] 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 41s 


Stephen for his open and conspicuous folly, since he who 
brags so loudly of the seat of his episcopate and who insists 
that he holds his succession from Peter, on whom the foun- 
dations of the Church were laid, is introducing many other 
rocks and building many new churches, as long as he sup- 
ports their baptism by his authority. For the baptized un- 
questionably compose the number of the Church. And who- 
ever approves their baptism, must needs also agree that the 
Church is there with those of them who are baptized. He 
does not comprehend that one who thus betrays and 
abandons unity disparages and in a way effaces the truth 
of the Christian rock. Even the Jews, though blind in 
their ignorance and enchained by their most dreadful sin, 
have yet, as the apostle declares, a zeal for God. Stephen, 
who asserts that he occupies by due succession the See of 
Peter, feels no stir of ardor against heretics and concedes 
to them no slight power of grace but the very highest, 
saying positively that with their sacrament of baptism they 
wash away the defilement of the old man, pardon previous 
deadly sins, create sons of God by heavenly regeneration 
and renew them to eternal life by the sanctification of the 
divine cleansing. To concede and attribute to heretics such 
great and celestial privileges of the Church, what is it but 
to hold communion with them, when one claims for them so 
much grace? It is foolish for him to hesitate any longer at 
uniting and sharing with them in everything else, joining 
in their congregations, mingling his prayers with theirs and 
setting up a common altar and sacrifice. 

18 “ But,” he says, ‘‘ the name of Christ avails so much 
for faith and baptismal sanctification that whoever is any- 
where baptized in the name of Christ receives immediately 
the grace of Christ.” This argument, however, may be 
shortly met and answered. For if baptism in Christ’s name 
outside the Church can avail to cleanse a man, then the 
laying on of hands in the name of the same Christ in the 


416 THE SEE OF PETER 


same place can avail to bring the Holy Ghost. And the 
other rites as well which are performed by heretics will 
come to seem correct and lawful, when performed in Christ’s 
name, whereas you have demonstrated in your letter that 
the name of Christ can avail only within the Church, on 
which alone Christ has bestowed the power of heavenly 
pracekayy 

20 Then, —to refute the argument from custom which 
they oppose to the truth, — who is so inane as to prefer cus- 
tom to truth or not to quit the darkness when he beholds 
the light? Unless, of course, we accept as excuse for them 
the ancient conduct of the Jews, who when Christ, that is the 
truth, came, ignored the new way of truth and abode by 
what was old. You Africans can make the reply to Stephen 
that you have abandoned a wrong custom on discovering 
the truth. We, however, combine custom with truth and 
oppose to the custom of the Romans a custom based upon 
truth, for from the beginning we have followed the rule 
delivered by Christ and his apostles. And we do not recol- 
lect that this was ever a new rule with us, since we have 
always here observed it, namely, to recognize but the one 
Church of God and to count only that a holy baptism which 
is administered by the holy Church. For some of us were 
exceedingly doubtful about the baptism of those persons 
who accept the new prophets, while still acknowledging the 
same Father and Son as we do,™ and a great many of us 
gathered together in Iconium and thoroughly debated the 
question and concluded once more that every baptism must 
be absolutely rejected which is performed outside the 
anurch, sya 

22... And Stephen is not ashamed to announce that 
remission of sins can be granted by those who are them- 
selves immersed in all kinds of sin, as if the laver of salvation 
could stand in the house of death. 

224 J.e., the Montanists. Supra, pp. 77, n. 38, 255. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 417 


23... Yea, thou |Stephen| art worse than all the 
heretics! For when the multitude discovers its error and 
comes to thee to obtain the true light of the Church, thou 
abettest their errors at their coming and increasest the dark- 
ness of the night of heresy by obscuring the light of the 
Church’s truth. And although they confess that they are 
in sin and have no grace and therefore are come to the 
Church, thou deniest them the remission of their sin which 
is granted in baptism, for thou sayest that they have been 
already baptized and have received the grace of the Church 
without the Church. Thou considerest not that their souls 
will be required at thine hand at the appearance of the day 
of judgment and thou refusest the water of the Church to 
those who are athirst and art the occasion of death to those 
who long to live. And withal thou art angry! 

24 See how ignorant thou art, presuming to upbraid 
those who are contending against falsehood for the truth! 
For which might the more justly be angry with the other, he 
who upholds the enemies of God or he who stands for the 
truth of the Church against God’s enemies? However, it is 
noticeable that the ignorant are also the irascible and angry, 
because through their lack of discretion and knowledge they 
are easily swayed to wrath. Of thee as surely as of any- 
one the Holy Scripture saith: “‘ An angry man stirreth up 
strife and a furious man heapeth up sins.” *”’ For what 
great strifes and dissensions thou has stirred up throughout 
the churches of the whole world! And what dire sin thou 
hast heaped up for thyself, when thou didst divide thyself 
from so many flocks! For thou didst divide thyself; be not 
deceived! And he is the true schismatic who makes himself 
an apostate from the communion of the united Church. So, 
while thou thinkest that thou canst excommunicate them all, © 
thou hast excommunicated thyself in solitude from them 
AVR a eae 

225 Proverbs, X XIX, 22. 


es a THE SEE OF PETER 


25 How faithfully has Stephen obeyed the saving com- 
mands and warnings of the apostle, preserving, in the first 
place, ‘‘lowliness of mind and meekness!” *”° What can 
be more lowly, and meek than to quarrel with so many 
bishops throughout the whole world, breaking the peace 
with them in turn by various modes of severity, now with 
the eastern churches, as we believe you have heard, and now 
with yourselves in the South? From you he received bishop 
envoys with such “ long-suffering ” and ‘‘ meekness ”’ that 
he did not admit them even to the common intercourse of 
speech and so mindful was he of “ love ” and “ charity ” that 
he instructed the entire brotherhood that no one should 
take them into his house, with the result that on their 
arrival not only peace and communion but even shelter and 
hospitality were denied them! This is to “ keep the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” to cut himself off from 
the unity of love, to alienate himself in everything from 
the brethren and to rebel in furious bitterness against the 
sacrament and “ bond of peace ”! Can there be “ one body 


and one spirit” with such a man, when he himself has, 


perhaps, not one mind, so slippery it is, so shifting, so un- 
stable? But let us say no more of him! ... 

. . . Then, since we and the heretics have not one God 
nor one Lord nor one Church nor one faith nor yet one 


spirit nor one body, it is plain that neither can we and the 


heretics have a common baptism, for we have nothing at all 
in common. Nevertheless Stephen is not ashamed to lend 
his protection to such men against the Church nor to divide 
the brotherhood in order to endorse heretics nor, above all, 


to call even Cyprian ‘ false Christ ” and “ false apostle ”” 


and ‘ deceitful workman.” He is conscious that all these 
offenses are in himself and has been beforehand with his 
lies, bringing against another the accusations he himself 


richly deserves to hear. We all bid you and all the bishops — F 


226 The references in this paragraph are to Ephesians, IV, 1-4. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 419 


who are in Africa and all the clergy and all the brotherhood 
farewell. May we always have you united with us, of one 
mind and heart, even though afar off! | 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 2-5. Text. Eusebius 
Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 636-640. 


2 After Cornelius had held the bishopric in the city of 
Rome for about three years, he was succeeded by Lucius. 
He filled the office less than eight months, then died and 
bequeathed his place to Stephen. To Stephen, Dionysius *” 
wrote the first of his letters on baptism, since much con- 
troversy had arisen as to whether it was necessary to cleanse 
by baptism those who had been converted from a heresy. 
For the ancient custom had prevailed, that such persons 
should receive simply the laying on of hands with prayer.” 
3 Cyprian, shepherd of the parish of Carthage, was the 
first in that generation to maintain that they should not 
be accepted until they had been purified by baptism from 
their error. But Stephen considered it wrong to introduce 
any innovation contrary to the tradition which had obtained 
from the beginning and he was exceedingly angry at it. 

4 So Dionysius discussed the subject at length with him 
by letter and finally argued that since the persecution had 
abated and the churches everywhere had rejected the novel 
teaching of Novatus,”” they were at peace among them- 
selves. He writes as follows:*”° 


227 Dionysius of Alexandria. Supra, pp. 350 ff. 

228 In the fifty years after Stephen, the Roman method of receiving heretics 
had spread so widely through the Church that to Eusebius, himself an Asiatic, 
it seemed the primitive one and Cyprian a leader in innovation. Yet the Council 
of Nicaea ordered the rebaptism of some followers of Paul of Samosata (Canon 
XIX) and Athanasius declared that baptism by Arians was vain. Oratio contra 
Arium, II, 43. Today the Greek church rebaptizes heretics. The Africans per- 
sisted in rebaptizing. Vide infra, pp. 466, 482. 

229 Eusebius uses the name Novatus for Novatian. Supra, p. 382, n. 182. 

230 The point of the argument here seems to be that since the churches had 
at last attained to peace, it would be a calamity for Stephen to introduce new 
causes for dissension. 


420 THE SEE OF PETER 


5 “ But I declare to you now, my brother, that all the 
churches throughout the East and beyond, which once were 
divided, are now united. And all the leaders everywhere 
are of one mind and rejoice greatly in the amazing peace 
that has come past expectation, Demetrius in Antioch, 
Theoctistus in Caesarea, Mazabanes in Aelia, Marinus in 
Tyre, — Alexander having fallen asleep, — Heliodorus in 
Laodicea, — Thelmydrus being dead, — Helenus in Tarsus 
and all the churches of Cilicia, Firmilian and all Cappa- 
docia.*** I have named only the more notable bishops, in 
order not to make my letter too long nor my words too 
tedious. And all Syria and Arabia, to which you send help 
whenever needed and whither you have just written a 
letter,”* Mesopotamia, Pontus, Bithynia, in short, everyone 
everywhere is joyful and glorifying God in concord and 
brotherly love.” Thus far Dionysius. 


Xystus II 


(257-258) 

On the death of Stephen, the Roman clergy elected as his 
successor one who, while standing for the retention at Rome of 
the custom of admitting converts from heresy without rebaptism, 
saw no need of prolonging the struggle to force that custom upon 
branches of the Church that held a different opinion and was 
willing to return to the old policy of mutual tolerance and har- 
mony. Dionysius and Philemon, two of the most prominent 
priests, who had at first supported Stephen, had received letters 
from Dionysius of Alexandria pleading for peace, which seem to 
have affected them. Other Roman Christians must have watched 
aghast the results of Stephen’s dictatorial tactics in alienating 
them from staunch neighbors and brethren such as Cyprian, with 


_ 231 Some of these names we have met before. Aelia was, of course, the 
Roman city built by Hadrian upon the site of Jerusalem. Supra, p. 387. 


282 One of the important testimonies to the relations maintained by the 


Roman church with Christian communities in the distant East. Supra, p. 217. 


a ae Se a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 421 


whom their relations had been so warm and close during past 
years of trial. Another persecution was at hand, when they all 
would need whatever strength they could get from one another. 
Whether Xystus II ever formally revoked the ban of his prede- 
cessor against the African and Asiatic churches or whether he 
merely resumed ordinary intercourse as if it had never been 
broken or as if the quarrel had been a personal affair with 
Stephen alone, with which he himself was not concerned, we have 
no way of knowing.”** 

We learn from Eusebius that Dionysius of Alexandria com- 
posed at least three letters to Xystus to explain the eastern 
attitude toward heretical baptism and the prime importance of 
peace. From two of these Eusebius gives extracts, which show 
Dionysius urging again that it had been useless for Stephen to 
expect the eastern churches to abandon, at the behest of one 
foreign bishop, a practice sanctioned for years by all their own 
bishops, both individually and in council. Having made this 
point courteously but firmly, Dionysius turns to topics on which 
he can be sure of arousing Xystus’ sympathies. In the first 
letter he reports the appearance of the Sabellian or Monarchian 
heresy *** in Egypt and the regions to the West and encloses copies 
of some letters he has had to write to persons affected by it. The 
second letter has a relieved and friendly sound, as if his worst 
fears of trouble with Xystus were over. In it he asks for Xystus’ 
advice on a delicate situation that has arisen in his own congrega- 
tion. A member of long standing has just realized that his baptism 
years before was heretical and now implores the church to baptize 
him anew. In the case of a fresh convert Dionysius, of course, 
would not have hesitated but with this man he feels that his years 
of faithful, eucharistic communion make a second baptism super- 
fluous and even blasphemous. It was one instance where Roman 
and Egyptian could agree on a phase of the question that divided 
them and where Xystus was bound to be gratified by Dionysius’ 


233 The life of Cyprian by his admirer Pontius says: “ By this time, he had 
received envoys from Xystus, that good and peaceable priest and, on that account, 
most blessed martyr.” Chap. XIV. 

234 That heresy was, of course, very familiar to a Roman. Supra, pp. 300, 
304, 309. 


422 THE SEE OF PETER 


attitude. It had almost the appearance of a concession, although 
in reality it surrendered nothing. There could have been no more 
diplomatic use made of such an episode. Thenceforth Rome and 
Alexandria appear to be on terms of cordiality and there is no 
further agonizing over the baptismal problem.**? In Dionysius’ 
account of his experiences during the subsequent persecution he 
mentions the fact that “one of the brethren who were present 
from Rome” accompanied him to his trial before the governor.”** 
Unfortunately we know less how matters stood between Rome 
and Africa after the resumption of communication. We possess 
no letter from Cyprian to or about Xystus, except the one written 
in August, 258, in evident haste and excitement. Brethren have 
come from Rome bringing the text of Valerian’s rescript against 
the Christians, soon to be posted up in Carthage also. Already 
the Roman prefects are at the business of denunciation, confisca- 
tion and execution. Xystus and four deacons have been put to 
death in one of the cemeteries. A few days more and the 
Carthaginian bishop followed the Roman to martyrdom.” 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 5, 3-6; 9, I-5. 
Text. Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen 
Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 640- 
642, 646-648. 


5 But when Stephen had filled the office for two years, 


he was succeeded by Xystus. To him Dionysius wrote an- 


other letter on baptism, in which he described both the 
views and the decisions of Stephen and of the other bishops 
and spoke as follows of Stephen: “‘ He wrote earlier about 
Helenus and Firmilian and all the bishops in Cilicia and 
Cappadocia and the regions near them, to the effect that 
he would not commune with them for this sole reason, be- 
cause, he said, they rebaptized heretics. But do you take 
into consideration the difficulty of the situation. For it is 


235 At the council of Arles, in 314, the whole western Church voted in favor 
of the Roman practice. 

236 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 11, 3. 

236a Perhaps, at this time the bodies of Peter and Paul were concealed, as re- 
lated supra, pp. 106, 108, 


| 
4 
q 
| 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 423 


a fact, I know, that the largest episcopal synods have passed 
ordinances on this point, providing that persons converted 
from heresies should be instructed and then washed and 
‘purified from the filth of the old and corrupt leaven. And 
I wrote him of all this and entreated him.” 

Further on he adds: ‘‘ I wrote also, at first briefly and 
recently at greater length, to our beloved fellow priests, 
Dionysius and Philemon, who originally were of the same 
opinion as Stephen and who wrote to me on the same 
subject..." ..... 

6 In the same letter he refers also to the heretical tenets 
of Sabellius as becoming widely diffused in his day and says: 
‘‘ As for the doctrine now being disseminated in Ptolemais 
of the Pentapolis,** it is impious, rife with blasphemy 
against Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and with unbelief in his only begotten Son, the first born 
of every creature, the Word which was made man, and with 
misapprehension of the Holy Spirit. Inasmuch as there have 
come to me communications from both parties and brethren 
to discuss the movement, I have written letters to deal with 
it as wisely as, with God’s help, I could. Of these I am 
sending you copies.” .. . 

9 His fifth letter **° was written to Xystus, bishop of 
Rome. In it, after denouncing the heretics, he relates an 
incident which had occurred to him, as follows: “ Truly, 
brother, I also am in need of counsel and desire your advice 
on a matter which has come before me, for fear that I may 
be mistaken. One of the brethren who meets with us, who 
has long been considered a believer and who was a member 


237 Eusebius quotes later from the two letters of Dionysius to the priests, 
Dionysius and Philemon. Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 7-8. The former succeeded 
Xystus in the Roman bishopric and while occupying that office had further rela- 
tions with Dionysius of Alexandria. Infra, pp. 4209 ff. 

238 The Pentapolis lay well to the west of Egypt, on a tableland surrounded 
by desert. The region was called Cyrenaica, from Cyrene, the chief of the five 
towns. 

239 Dionysius’ fifth letter on the subject of baptism. 


424 THE SEE OF PETER 


of our congregation before my own ordination and, I think, 
before the election of the blessed Heraclas,”° was lately 
present at a baptism. And after hearing the questions and 
responses he came to me in tears and great distress and 
falling at my feet, confessed and insisted that the baptism 
with which he had been baptized among the heretics was 
not the same and in no way resembled this but was full of 
impiety and blasphemy. And he said that his soul was now 
convulsed with grief and he had not courage to raise his eyes 
to God, because he had entered the Church with those un- 
holy words and acts. So he begged that he might have our 
perfect cleansing and reception and grace. But I did not 
dare perform the rite and told him that his long communion 
would suffice instead. For I should not dare to give com- 
plete renewal, for the second time, to one who has listened 
to the eucharistic prayers and mingled his voice in the 
‘“¢ Amen,” who has stood by the table and stretched out his 
hand to take the blessed food and has received it and par- 
taken of our Lord’s body and blood for many years.” But 
I urged him to be of good heart and approach the com- 
munion of saints in firm faith and strong hope. But he 
does not yet cease his lamentations and shudders to draw 
near the table and, in spite of our invitation, hardly ventures 
to be present at the prayers.” 


Cyprian, Epistolae, LXXX. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, III’, 839-840. 


Cyprian to his brother Successus, greeting. 
. . . This is to inform you that the men have returned, 
whom I sent to Rome to ascertain the truth about what- 


240 Heraclas, also a pupil of Origen, was elected bishop of Alexandria about 
231 or 232. He was Dionysius’ immediate predecessor in the see. 

241 J.e,, the Spirit working through the eucharist may have purified the be- 
liever after an unwittingly heretical and invalid baptism. Dionysius lays stress 
on the man’s own sense of the worthlessness and offensiveness of the heretical 
ceremony. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 425 


ever rescript has been issued regarding us and to bring 
us a report. For many varied and unconfirmed rumors 
have been going about. But the actual facts are that 
Valerian has sent a rescript to the Senate, to the effect that 
bishops, priests and deacons should be executed forthwith, 
senators, men of rank and Roman knights should forfeit 
their standing and be deprived of their property and if, 
after the loss of their resources, they persist in remaining 
Christians, should be put to death, matrons should be de- 
prived of their property and sent into exile and all members 
of the imperial household who either have previously con- 
fessed or do now confess should be arrested and sent in 
chains, as conscripts, to the imperial estates. The emperor 
Valerian has also appended to the document a copy of the 
letter which he has sent to the governors of the provinces 
about us. This letter we daily expect to arrive and we 
stand in the strength of faith, ready to endure our passion, 
looking for the crown of eternal life through the goodness 
and mercy of the Lord. This is also to tell you that Xystus 
was executed in a cemetery, on August sixth, and four 
deacons with him. For the prefects at Rome daily push on 
the persecution, so that all who are denounced to them are 
executed and their property confiscated to the treasury. .. . 


THE SERMON, On GAMBLERS, BY A BISHOP OF THE THIRD 
CENTURY AT ROME 


The following extracts are given to indicate the character of 
an ancient Latin sermon, the authorship of which has been 
variously attributed to Pope Victor, to Cyprian, and to an un- 
known Novatianist bishop of the later years of the third century. 
It is traditionally published among the works of Cyprian but is 
manifestly not his, although it seems to show traces of an 
acquaintanceship with Cyprian’s ideas and writings. Harnack 
at one time thought to see in it a solitary survival of the homilies 


426 THE SEE OF PETER 


of Pope Victor, who, as Jerome tells us, wrote in Latin ** and 
who, as we also know, assumed a primacy in ecclesiastical 
authority. Harnack’s theory, however, did not meet with general 
acceptance and he himself has now abandoned it in favor of the 
view of Seeberg and others, that the preacher, evidently a person 
of much moral earnestness and austerity, whose name has com- 
pletely disappeared, was one of the irregular bishops or anti- 
popes whom the Novatianists and their successors continued to 
elect at Rome and elsewhere for over two hundred years. The 
opening paragraph seems to imply that the author claimed a 
special succession from Peter and looked upon himself as rightful 
head of the Roman See. If he were a Novatianist and a schis- 
matic, he none the less held the orthodox Roman belief in the 
unique responsibility resting upon the bearer of Peter’s keys. 


For Harnack’s successive discussions of this treatise, O. Gebhardt, A. 
Harnack, C. Schmidt (editors), Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte 
der altchristlichen Litteratur (45 vols., Leipzig, 1883-1924), Vol. I, pp. 110 
sqq.; op. cit. Vol. XX (1900), pp. 112 sqg.; A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte 
(3 vols., Freiburg, 1898), Vol. I, p. 483, n. 4; J. Turmel, L’Eglise Romaine 
jusquwau Pape Victor in Revue Catholique des Eglises (Paris, 1905), Ppp. 3- 
21; O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (trans. by T. Shahan, St. Louis, 1908), pp. 
199-200. 


De Aleatoribus. Text. Cyprian, Opera, ed. by W. Hartel, 
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, IIL’, 
92-95. 

1.. .%° Our concern, O faithful ones, is great for all 
the brotherhood, in particular over that reckless vice of every 
wicked man, gambling. It plunges souls into sin and the 
gamblers themselves into the pit of death. And whereas 
divine and fatherly affection has conferred upon us the 
leadership of the apostolate *“* and has established by divine 


242 Supra, p. 274, n. 87. But Victor, so far as we have evidence, does not claim 
unique powers for Peter nor use the passage in Matthew that singled Peter out as 
the rock foundation of the Church, as does the anonymous author here. 

243 The opening sentences of the sermon have been lost. 

244 The Latin phrase is: “apostolatus ducatum.” It goes on: “et originem 
authentici apostolatus, super quem Christus fundavit ecclesiam in superiore nostro, 


Se 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 427 


grace the see of the vicar of the Lord and we administer 
the original authoritative apostolate, upon which Christ 
founded his Church in the person of our great predecessor, 
who received at the same time the power of loosing and 
binding and the responsibility of forgiving sins, we are 
warned by the doctrine of salvation that while we are 
continually pardoning sinners we ourselves must not be 
perverted with them. | 

2 So for this reason we are called the salt of the earth, 
that by us all the brotherhood may be salted with heavenly 
wisdom. But when he says: “ Even salt, if it hath lost its 
flavor, is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden 
under foot of men,” “’ we dread his words and are in fear, 
lest while living secure in the Church, because we have 
obtained the dignity of priesthood from the Lord, we prove 
negligent toward some of the delinquent brethren or by 
ministering false communion lose, in the Lord’s wrath, by 
our own act, the gift which we once received, by God’s 
grace, with honor. For the sacred Scripture says: ‘‘ Woe to 
the shepherds!” *“* And if the shepherds themselves be 
negligent, how will they account to the Lord for the flock? 
What will they say? That they have been injured by the 
flock? They will not be believed. It is incredible that a 
shepherd can be harmed by his flock. He will be punished 
the more for his lie. Another Scripture says: ‘“‘ Do they seek 
thee to be their governor? Refuse to be exalted. Be unto 
them as one of themselves. Be careful for them and remain 
as thou art.” “7 And again: ‘‘ Regard the priest as a 
husbandman, furnished with every delight, and his granaries 
full, that from him my people may be satisfied with what- 
ever they desire.” *** So, inasmuch as he has appointed us, 


portamus.” The word “authenticus” has the sense of original and therefore 


authentic and authoritative. eee 
245 Matthew, V, 13. 247 Ecclesiasticus, XXXII, 1. 
246 Ezekiel, XXXIV, 2. 248 The source of this quotation is unknown. 


428 THE SEE OF PETER 


that is, the bishops, to be shepherds of the spiritual sheep, 
that is, the faithful who are placed under our care, let us 
see to it that no sore of vice be found among them, and 
let us watch carefully every day that after the heavenly 
medicine has been applied, their fleece may grow in beauty 
as they approach the radiance of the garments of heaven. 

3 In the gospel, the Lord spoke to Peter. ‘“ Peter,” he 
said, “ lovest thou me?” **’ And Peter answered: “ Yea, 
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” And he said: “ Feed 
my sheep.” Wherefore, since we have received into our 
hearts this bishopric, that is, the Holy Spirit through the 
imposition of hands, let us show no harshness to our neigh- 
bor. The Lord admonishes us and says: ‘‘ Grieve not the 
Holy Spirit that is within you and quench not the light that 
burns within you.” °° Even as the merits of martyrdom 
have been awarded to a bishop who has labored worthily 
and given saving instruction, although he has suffered no 
pains of the body, even so shall punishment be in store for 
the bishop who has been negligent and held up no examples 
from sacred Scripture. The apostle Paul in his lofty place 
exhorts us, appoints the bishops as guardians of the gospel 
teaching and says: ‘‘ When an heir is a child, he is under 
guardians and administrators but when he is grown, he then 
receives his inheritance.” *°* So we are dispensors and 
guardians of the gospel and it is required of dispensors and 
guardians that they each be found faithful and just... . 

[The preacher proceeds to demonstrate the criminality 
of gambling, a device of idle, spendthrift thieves, and ends 
with urging the Christian not to soil his hands with dice 
but to lay his money on the table of the Lord and share 
his inheritance with the widows and the poor, thus storing 
up treasure in heaven and winning lands and villas in 
paradise. | 

249 John, XXI, 15-17. 250 Ephesians, IV, 30. 251 Galatians, IV, 1-4. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 429 


5. THE GROWTH OF JURISDICTION 


Dionysius I 
(259-268) 


The persecution of Valerian, the most persistent and system- 
atic effort made before the reign of Diocletian to break down the 
Christian Church, lasted for four years, from 257 to 261. For 
over eleven months, from August, 258, to July, 259, the Roman 
community was again without a bishop, administered surrepti- 
tiously, as In 250-251, by priests and deacons who survived in 
hiding. The Persian Wars, however, called Valerian to the East 
and in 260, he was taken captive in battle. His son, Gallienus, 
who stepped at once into his office, was a man of profligate habits 
and no resolution of purpose. For the first months of his reign, 
he allowed the persecution to continue intermittently, as it would, 
but in 261, he abruptly reversed his father’s policy and issued 
the first formal recognition of Christianity as a religio licita, the 
practice of which could no longer be treated as criminal in itself. 
He added an order that houses of worship and cemeteries which 
had been wrested from the Christians should be returned. 
Eusebius cites the text of a rescript that was addressed to the 
bishops of the province of Egypt. ‘‘ I have given command that 
the favor of my bounty be proclaimed throughout the world, in 
order that they may withdraw from places of religious worship. 
_And for this purpose you may use this copy of my rescript, to 
prevent anyone from molesting you.” *°* Apparently the bishops 
of each important province or group of provinces received some 
such reassuring communication. 

So the latter part of Dionysius’ pontificate passed in a security 
greater than any of his predecessors had known. As usual, after 
a period of stress and confusion, there was need of internal re- 
organization. At least, a later generation ascribed to Dionysius 
the institution of regular parish churches in the city, each to 
form an ecclesiastical center for a given urban district and to 
assume responsibility for the care of one of the Christian ceme- 


252 Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 13. 


430 THE SEE OF PETER 


teries outside the walls. To him also was attributed the fixation 
of boundaries for the suburban episcopal dioceses in the vicinity 
of Rome.”* When under Gallienus’ slovenly administration in 
the East the Scythians broke into Asiatic Cappadocia and carried 
off many captives, Dionysius sent a letter of encouragement to 
the church in the provincial capital of Caesarea and a gift of 
funds from Rome to be used for redeeming Christians who had 
been enslaved.”** 

All else that we know of his relations with the Church at large 
revolves about the controversy over the nature of Christ and his 
connection with the eternal Godhead, which was beginning to 
absorb the attention of teachers and laborers in the expanding 
field of Christian theology. We have already noted the appear- 
ance in Rome of two sects, each of which maintained a clear and. 
consistent position on this subject, diametrically opposed to the 
other.”*> The Monarchians or Sabellians looked upon Christ as 
a temporary manifestation in flesh of the one, everlasting spirit 
of God, without permanent individuation distinct from the 
Father. The Adoptionists believed in the man Jesus, who by 
love and suffering had achieved divinity and fulfilled the purposes 
of God. The middle or orthodox view attempted to combine the 
advantages of these two contradictory conceptions. Christ was 
both as divine as the Sabellians and as human as the Adoptionists 
would have him. No limitations must be put upon his nature or 
personality in either direction. We have also heard how, in 257 


or 258, the Sabellians were reported to be teaching in the Pen- 


tapolis, westward from Egypt, and how Dionysius of Alexandria 
wrote to the bishops in that locality, warning them against denial 
of Christ’s humanity.”® It now transpired that in his zeal to 
emphasize the difference of person between the Father and the 
Son, the Alexandrian had failed to guard against the danger of 
overstatement on so precarious a topic and had used in his letters 


253 This tradition appears in the sixth century Liber Pontificalis. Vide L. R. 
Loomis, Book of the Popes, 32 and n. 2; A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion 
_of Christianity, Vol. II, p. 250. 

254 Infra, p. 642. 

255 Supra, pp. 260, n. 55, 300, 274. : 

256 Supra, p. 423. Eusebius knew four such letters. Historia Ecclesiastica, 
VII, 26. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 431 


some phrases that seemed to denote a difference of substance and 
to reduce the Son to the inferior level of a thing created. Some 
watchful brethren, scenting a lapse into Adoptionism, came 
travelling to Italy and informed Dionysius of Rome that his 
colleague in Egypt had fallen into heretical error. 

The situation was certainly peculiar. A few years earlier, the 
Roman Dionysius as a priest had supported the efforts of his 
bishop, Stephen, to concentrate in his own hands a statutory and 
disciplinary power over the whole Church for the sake of enforc- 
ing uniformity of dogma and ritual in a matter of comparative 
detail.*°** But the wise and tactful expostulations of the Alex- 
andrian Dionysius, perhaps also the spectacle of the disrupted 
brotherhood, had shaken his faith in methods of coercion. Now 
this venerable friend and peacemaker, the head of one of the 
great eastern sees, was himself accused of heresy on a funda- 
mental point. Was the new successor of Peter to brandish his 
authority again? Dionysius acted as one conscious of a right 
to leadership, who yet had learned the lesson of Stephen. He 
issued a summary of the Christological problem, in which he 
indicated the pitfalls of both “ the equal and opposite heresies,” 
and then sent a letter to Alexandria telling Dionysius there what 
perilous thing was being said of him. He also convened a “ great 
synod ” at Rome, which agreed upon a pronunciamento to the 
effect, ‘‘that the Logos of God was neither a thing made nor a 
creature but his own inseparable and begotten Son, of the sub- 
stance of the Father.” The Alexandrian Dionysius responded 
with a treatise entitled A Refutation and Defence, addressed 
to his namesake at Rome, in which he endorsed the epithet 
““homoousios,” 7.¢., of the same substance or consubstantial, as 
applied to the Son and cleared himself of the charges of hetero- 
doxy. ‘The treatise itself is lost and we have only a few frag- 
ments preserved by Athanasius.”* Neither party apparently 
raised at that time the question of the Roman bishop’s right to 
call to account another metropolitan, although a century later 
the incident was taken as a precedent to justify Roman intrusion 

257 Supra, p. 423. 


258 These fragments are all collected in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 
X, 1233 sgqg. See also Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 26, 1. 


432 THE SEE OF PETER 
into the case of Athanasius.?°° As for the term ‘“ homoousios,” 
in 325, it was introduced into the creed of Nicaea on the express 
ground that it had been long ago approved by the bishops of 
Rome and Alexandria,**° and Athanasius wrote a pamphlet, De 
Sententiis Dionystui, to show how completely these older Fathers 
had in their day anticipated the Nicene position. 

A few years later, another episode in the warfare of doctrines 
occurred at Antioch, in which the religious aspects of the case 
were made still more complicated by the political. After the de- 
feat of Valerian, in 260, the Persians had held northern Syria and 
much of Asia Minor until expelled, in 262 and 263, by the Arab 
chieftain, Odenathus of Palmyra, who with his wife Zenobia 
proceeded to rule the Asiatic provinces as deputy of the indolent 
Gallienus. On their capture of Antioch, they found the bishopric. 
in that city filled by one Paul, a priest from the Syrian town 
of Samosata. Paul was both an able theologian and a man of 
strong and dominating character. He attracted the attention of 
Queen Zenobia, who appointed him “ ducenarius ”’ or “ procura- 
tor” in the government of the municipality. In his capacity 
of high civil official he assumed a state and a pomp that were 
hitherto unprecedented among Christian bishops, the rumors of 
which were shocking to the ears of his colleagues elsewhere in 
Asia. Moreover, Paul’s theology was of the Adoptionist type. 
He went so far as to forbid in Antioch the singing of psalms to 
Christ as God and taught explicitly that the Savior had become 
holy through struggle and had thus attained to perpetual unity 
of will with the Father.*** The Asiatic bishops, however, kept 
for a while the scandal of their metropolitan to themselves, ap- 
pealing only to Dionysius of Alexandria for advice. They held 
two provincial synods, at which our old acquaintance, Firmilian 
of Cappadocia,?*? seems to have presided, and twice they per- 

259 When, in 341, Bishop Julius of Rome was insisting upon the right of © 
Athanasius of Alexandria to receive a new trial, he reminded the Asiatic bishops 
at Antioch that it was customary, whenever suspicion rested upon an Alexandrian 
bishop, to send word of it at once to Rome that the case might be decided there. 
Infra, p. 515. 

260 Infra, Pp. 472. 

261 For selections illustrating Paul’s doctrine see J. C. Ayer, Source Book for 


Ancient Church History, pp. 227-2209. 
262 Supra, Pp. 411, 420. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 433 


suaded Paul to promise certain amendments in his doctrine and 
his way of life. But the amendments were insufficient and the 
reports of Paul’s heresies and extravagances grew and spread. 
At length, in 268 or 269, a larger synod of seventy bishops, 
priests and deacons met at Antioch, determined to put an end to 
so undesirable a situation in the principal church of Asia. 
Dionysius of Alexandria died as the synod opened. Firmilian 
died upon his way from Cappadocia to attend it. Only a very 
few, such as Helenus of Tarsus, were left of the men who had 
taken part in the old struggle against Stephen for eastern inde- 
pendence. The assembly was bent upon removing Paul alto- 
gether, but his official position and influence with Zenobia over- 
awed the Antiochian clergy and laity, with whom rested the 
right to elect a new bishop. Paul may also have been popular 
with the people in spite of the accusations which his opponents 
brought against him. The visiting synod, therefore, took the 
exceptional step of pronouncing him deposed for misconduct 
and false teaching and electing Domnus, son of Paul’s predecessor 
Demetrianus, to fill his place.”** But because the election was 
extraordinary and irregular and the see of Antioch important to 
the whole Church, the assembly felt it necessary to explain its 
action and to put Domnus on a fair footing with his colleagues 
at large. They drew up a letter, addressed in the first place, to 
Dionysius of Rome, secondly, to Maximus, who had by this time 
succeeded Dionysius of Alexandria, and then to all their fellow 
clergy and “ the whole catholic Church under heaven,” containing 
both the charges against Paul and an account of their own deal- 
ings with him. ‘They wrote as autonomous bishops to their 
brethren and equals. Nevertheless, it is clear from the address 
whose approval was most desired and whose sanction was re- 
garded as most valuable. Both Dionysius and Maximus seem to 
have accepted the explanation. At least, they made no protest 


263 Compare this with Cyprian’s account of the correct procedure to be fol- 
lowed in the treatment of an heretical bishop. Other bishops might exclude him 
from their synods but his provincial colleagues must elect and ordain his successor 
in the presence and with the consent of the local church. Supra, p. 401. But a 
century later, in the thick of the Arian dispute, irregularities like this became 
common enough. The most flagrant of which we happen to hear were the work 
of Arians. See, for example, the methods used to put an Arian bishop into the 
see of Alexandria. Infra, pp. 491, 542. 


434 THE SEE OF PETER 


against Domnus’ ordination. The eastern party of the following 
century contended that Dionysius’ acquiescence in this exercise 
of power on the part of an eastern tribunal constituted a prec- 
edent sufficient to nullify the one he had set earlier by his inter- 
ference with Dionysius of Alexandria.** 

On the various movements and incidents connected with Dionysius’ pon- 
tificate vide P. Pape, Die Synoden von Antiochen (Berlin, 1903), pp. 264- 
269; F. C. Conybeare, Key of Truth (Oxford, 1898); A. Harnack, Geschichte 
der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893-1904), 
Vol. I, pp. 409-427; C. Bigg, Origins of Christianity (Oxford, 1909), chap. 
XXXV; O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (trans. by T. Shahan, St. Louis, 1908), 
§ 40; B. J. Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols., Oxford, 1922- 


1925), Vol. I, pp. 484-504. 


Athanasius, De Sententiis Dionysii, 13. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 497-500. 


13... After Bishop Dionysius [of Alexandria] had 
heard of the events in the Pentapolis and in his zeal for 
religion had written, as I said, his letter to Euphranor and 
Ammonius against the heresy of Sabellius, some of the 


brethren in the church, who were orthodox themselves but 


who did not inquire of him in order to learn from himself 
what he had written, went up to Rome and spoke against 
him in the presence of him who had the same name, 


Dionysius, bishop of Rome. And the latter on hearing it 


wrote both against the adherents of Sabellius and against 
those who held the opinion for which Arius was expelled 
from the church.*” And he called it an equal and opposite 
impiety to side with Sabellius or with those who say that 
the Word of God is a creature, framed and brought into 
being. He wrote also to Dionysius [of Alexandria] to in- 
form him of what they had said about him. The latter 


264 They maintained that Dionysius’ admission of the right of the Synod of 
Antioch to depose Paul deprived the Roman Julius of any authority to judge the 
case of Athanasius. Infra, p. 526. Thus both West and East cited Dionysius for 
their own ends. 

265 The Arianism of the fourth century was a modified offshoot of the 
Adoptionism of the third. 


So eS a "ee 


. 
’ 
§ 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 435 


immediately replied and composed a book entitled A Refuta- 
tion and Defense. Note here how detestable is the gang 
of the adversaries of Christ and how they themselves 
have stirred up their own disgrace. For since Dionysius, 
bishop of Rome, wrote against those who asserted that the 
Son of God was a creature and a thing made, it is obvious 
that not now for the first time *** but in years past the 
heresy of the Arian foes of Christ has been anathematized 
by everyone. And since Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, 
defended himself from the charge regarding the letter he 
had written, it is plain that he too neither thought as they 
say he did nor entertained the Arian error at all.*"’ 


_ Athanasius, De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi, 25-26. ‘Text. 
J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 461-466. 


When he [Dionysius of Alexandria] was suspected of 
saying that the Son was a creature and not eternal and not 
of the substance of the Father, he wrote to his namesake, 
Dionysius, bishop of Rome, and explained that this was a 
calumny against him. He asserted that he had never called 
the Son a creature and that he believed him to be of the 
same substance. His words are as follows: ‘ And I have 
written another letter in which I have proved that their 
charge against me is false, namely, that I deny that Christ 
is of the same substance ** as God. For although I do say 
that I have not found the word [homoousios| anywhere in 
Holy Scripture, still my argument from that point on, which 
they do not mention, is in harmony with the idea... . 
But this letter, as I said before, I am not able to produce 


266 J.e., in Athanasius’ own day, the years following the Nicene Council. 

267 However, Basil, the great bishop of Cappadocia, who, a few years after 
Athanasius, read the documents in this case, decided that the Alexandrian Dionysius 
had actually strayed far into Arianism. Basil, Epistolae, 9. 

268 The word here translated “of the same substance” is dpoovcvos, 
homoousios, the same word that was introduced, through Roman influence, into 
the creed of Nicza and around which the battle raged for years afterwards. Infra, 
PP. 471, 474, 492, 543 ff. 


436 THE SEE OF PETER 


because of the state of affairs here; otherwise I should have 
sent you the passage as I wrote it or, rather, a copy of the 
whole, as I shall do, whenever I find it possible. I know 
and remember that I cited many instances of analogy. For 
I said that a plant that springs from a seed or a root is 
different from that whence it grew but remains absolutely 
of the same nature with it. And I said that a river flowing 
from a spring has its own name, because the spring is not 
called a river nor the river a spring and both are there and 
the river is the water from the spring.” 

And the great synod **’ declared that the Word of God 
was not a thing made nor a creature but his own inseparable 
and begotten Son, of the substance of the Father. There 
also was the bishop of Rome, Dionysius, writing against the 
Sabellians and voicing in the following words his indignation 
against those who dared to make such professions. “. 

[A denunciation, first of Sabellius, ‘ for saying that the San 
is the Father,’ and in the next place, of the ‘ futile’ and 
‘diabolic’ doctrine of ‘the Marcionists,’ which makes 
three gods out of the Trinity.| . . . No less should one 
upbraid those who teach that the Son is a creature and that 
the Lord was made, as if they regarded him as something 
really made, although the divine Scriptures bear witness that 
he was fittingly and rightfully begotten and was neither 


fashioned nor created. It is therefore a blasphemy of the ~ 


gravest kind to say that the Lord was in any way moulded 
by a hand. For if the Son was made, there was a time 
when he was not. But Christ always was, if he is indeed 
in the Father, as he himself says, and if he is Word and 
Wisdom and Power. And Christ is all these according to the 
divine Scriptures, as you know. . . . So we must not divide 
into three godheads the wonderful unity of God nor diminish 
by creation the loftiness and surpassing greatness of the 
Lord, but believe in God, the Father Almighty, and in Christ 


269 Dionysius’ synod at Rome. 


Se TT 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 437 


Jesus, his Son, and in the Holy Spirit and in the unity of the 
Word with the God of all.°". . .” 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 30, 1-5, 17. Text. 
Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrift- 
steller der ersten dret Jahrhunderte), IL’, 704-709; 
712-713. 

The pastors who had assembled to discuss the matter 7” 
drew up by common consent a letter addressed to Dionysius, 
bishop of the Romans, and to Maximus, bishop at Alex- 
andria, and sent it around to all the provinces. In it they 
made clear to everyone their own fidelity and the perverted 
- heterodoxy of Paul and the arguments and debates which 
they had held with him and they depicted besides the whole 
life and character of the man. It may be well to record here 
the following extracts from this report. 

“ Helenus, Hymenaeus, Theophilus, T heotecnus, Maxi- 
mus, Proclus, Nicomas, Aelianus, Paul, Bolanus, Protogenes, 
Hierax, Eutychius, Theodore, Malchion and Lucius *” and 
all others who dwell with us in nearby cities and nations, 
bishops, priests and deacons, and the churches of God, to 
Dionysius and Maximus and to all our fellow ministers 
throughout the world, bishops, priests and deacons, and to 
the whole catholic Church under heaven, greeting to our 
beloved brethren in the Lord.” 

A little further on they proceed: ‘‘ We summoned and 
called upon many bishops, even from a distance, to deliver 
us from this baneful doctrine, such as Dionysius of Alex- | 


andria and Firmilian of Cappadocia, those blessed men. 


270 The Roman Dionysius does not himself anywhere, in the passage which 
Athanasius quotes, use the word homoousios. Yet it is evident from the Alexan- 
drian’s letter that he demanded acceptance of it as one form of definition of the 
character of the unity of the Father and the Son. 

271 J.e., the case of Paul of Samosata, heretical bishop of Antioch and official 
of Queen Zenobia. Supra, pp. 432-433 

272 This list of sixteeen names includes bishops from Tarsus, Jerusalem, Caesa- 
rea in Palestine, Bostra in Arabia, Iconium, Egypt and others of whose dioceses 
we are ignorant. 


438 THE SEE OF PETER 


The former sent a letter to Antioch, for he did not regard 
the leader of this error as himself deserving of address and 
he wrote not to him but to the parish as a whole. Of his 
letter we give a copy below. Firmilian twice visited us and 
condemned his innovations, as we who were present know 
and testify and many others know as well. But when Paul 
promised to modify his tenets, Firmilian believed him and 
hoped that the trouble might be adjusted without any re- 
proach to the Word. So he delayed proceedings, for he was 
deceived by him who denied even his own God and Lord 
and abandoned the faith which he once held. At length, 
Firmilian set out again upon his way to Antioch and came 
as far as Tarsus, having now had full experience of Paul’s 
atheistic perfidy. But just then, while we who had met 
here were inquiring for him and waiting for his arrival, he 
died aia" 

Then at the end of the letter, they add these words: 
“‘ Therefore we have been obliged to excommunicate him, 
since he sets himself up against God and refuses to yield 
and appoint another bishop in his place for the catholic 
Church. Guided by God, as we believe, we have appointed 
Domnus, who is adorned with all the virtues becoming to a 
bishop and is a son of the blessed Demetrianus, who for- 
merly presided with distinction over the same parish." We 
have notified you of this step, that you may write to him 
and accept letters of communion from him. But let Paul 
write to Artemas *” and let those who think as Artemas 
does hold communion with him.” 


273 The portion of the letter omitted here accuses Paul of illgotten wealth, 
arrogant appearances in public, surrounded by a bodyguard and seated on a high 
tribune, suspicious relations with women and heretical teaching as to the nature 
of Christ. It also mentions the fear with which the Antiochene people regarded 
him. It is the first account in church history of a bishop who was also a royal 
official, a phenomenon that ceased to be remarkable during the next two centuries. 

274 Demetrianus had been Paul’s predecessor. Supra, p. 387. 

275 This may be a reference to the Artemon who professed Adoptionist theories 
at Rome at the beginning of the century, although it seems unlikely that he was 
still alive. Supra, pp. 275, 278. In one of the omitted passages in the letter, Paul 
is said to have shared “the abominable heresy of Artemas.” 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 439 


FELIx I 


(268-274) 

The case of Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, had, as we 
have said, been complicated from the outset by the fact that he 
exercised civil as well as spiritual authority. It was not then 
after all to be settled by a purely ecclesiastical agency, such as a 

«council of priests and bishops. For Paul refused to admit the 
validity of the council’s sentence of deposition or to surrender 
the church edifice. He defiantly continued to act as if still in 
secure possession of both his offices. Domnus and his supporters 
had no material resources comparable to his and were obliged to 
establish themselves as unostentatiously as they could about the 
city. In this fashion the deadlock began and lasted for several 
years, one party professing the orthodox doctrine and maintaining 
communion with the catholic churches abroad, the other consist- 
ing of Adoptionists and Paul’s personal adherents, backed by the 
power of Queen Zenobia, who had become, since the death of 
Odenathus, sole sovereign in the provinces of Asia. 

But in 270, the government of the world passed once more 
into the hands of an energetic soldier emperor, Aurelian, who 
set vigorously about repairing the imperial system where it had 
fallen into desuetude. In 272, he defeated the haughty Zenobia 
in battle, dispatched her to Rome to grace his triumph and re- 
stored the provincial system of administration in Roman Asia. 
On the taking of Antioch by the imperial legions, Paul lost his 
position in civil affairs, although he still held the church buildings 
and his episcopal title. But now the orthodox party in Antioch 
Saw-+an opportunity to undermine him with his own weapons and 
for the first time on record, Christians at odds with one another 
competed for the aid of Caesar. The orthodox petitioned 
Aurelian to compel Paul, the favorite of the vanquished Zenobia, 
to withdraw from the church and to permit Domnus, the rightful 
bishop, to enter it. The friends of Paul, on the other hand, also 
addressed the emperor, urging that he was the legitimate choice 
of the people of Antioch, who had never concurred in his 
deposition. 


440 THE SEE OF PETER 


Aurelian’s patience was unequal to fathoming the intricacies 
of ecclesiastical argumentation. In Rome, on one occasion, 
he reproved the Senate for spending too long a time over a 
discussion, as though, he said, they were “ arguing in a Christian 
meeting and not in the temple of all the gods.” *”* His own aim 
was to recreate an efficient empire under a well-knit government, 
centralized at Rome. The Church, as a widespread organization 
of his subjects, might advisably be taught to defer to Italy in its 
religious disputes. Also it was convenient and simple for the 
emperor to treat the bishop of the capital city and his associates 
as responsible for the whole body. . His answer to the petitioners, 
accordingly, was a command that the decision between Paul and 
Domnus should be submitted to the judgment of the bishops of 
Italy and Rome. Thus, as a result of their appeal, the Christians 
of Antioch forfeited for the nonce their cherished eastern inde- 
pendence and the primacy, for which Victor and Stephen had 
contended on religious grounds, came in part, for a moment, as a 
gift from the pagan State to Felix. 

In what form the verdict was delivered to the Antiochene 
church, whether as the joint resolution of an Italian synod under 
Felix’s presidency or as the judgment of Felix himself, speaking 
as head of the church of Italy, Eusebius does not say. He tells 
us merely that Paul was forced to evacuate his church. Nor do 
we hear that anyone anywhere raised a note of protest against 
the resort to the emperor. The Romans had gained too much 
by it to make it likely that they would object and the Asia-. 
tics were perhaps after all relieved to have the tedious quarrel 
ended and the see of Antioch at peace under an orthodox 
bishop. 

In 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, in the thick of more 
efforts to reach a satisfactory definition of the nature of Christ, 
an extract was read and entered in the records from a letter that 
Felix wrote to Maximus and the clergy of Alexandria, in which 
he contrasted the Adoptionist and the orthodox views on the sub- 
ject. From it we gather that he, like his predecessor, Dionysius, 
felt it his duty to carry on the work of formulating dogma and 


276 Flavius Vopiscus, Aurelian, c. XX. Quoted by A. Harnack, The Mission 
and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. II, p. 247, n. 3. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE AAI 
that he too presented his conclusions to other churches for their 
guidance. 


For references see under Dionysius, supra, p. DCD. 


Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 30, 18-19. Text. 
Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrift- 
steller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), 11’, 715. 


So after Paul had fallen from the episcopate as well as 
from the orthodox faith, Domnus, as we have said, was ap- 
pointed to the ministry of the church at Antioch. But since 
Paul refused to surrender the church house,” a petition 
was sent to the emperor Aurelian and he decided the ques- 
tion with great justice, ordering that the building should 
be given to that party to whom the bishops of Italy and the 
city of Rome should award it.- In this way, the man was 
exposed and driven from the church in utter disgrace by 
the worldly power. 


Felix I, Fragment of a letter to Bishop Maximus and the 
clergy of Alexandria. Text. G. D. Mansi, Amplissima 
Collectio, I, 1114.°™ 


As regards the incarnation of the Word and our faith, 
we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin 
Mary, that he is himself the eternal Son and Word of God 
and not man adopted by God to be another beside him. 
Nor did the Son of God adopt a man to be another beside 
himself, but being perfect God, he became at the same time 
also perfect man, incarnate from the Virgin. 


277 The word used by Eusebius for the church edifice is ofxos, the Greek 
counterpart to the Latin domus or house. The building included, probably, a 
house in which the bishop lived and a large hall in which religious services were 
celebrated. At this period, such a structure might have been the ecclesiastical 
centre of the city. 

278 This same fragment was cited also by Cyril of Alexandria in his Apologia. 
Compare with the statements of Paul’s doctrine, as in J. C. Ayer, Source Book for 
Ancient Church History, pp. 227-229. 


442 THE SEE OF PETER 


6. THE OBSCURE PERIOD 


FRoM EUTYCHIANUS TO EUSEBIUS 


(275-310) 

The thirty-seven years that elapsed between the decision in 
the affair of Paul of Samosata and the legalization of Christianity 
by Constantine are, strange to say, almost a blank in papal his- 
tory. Eusebius, our guide and mainstay hitherto, who found 
numerous letters from Roman bishops as far as Felix laid up in 
the library at Caesarea, whose chronology, as well as it can now 
be tested, seems to be accurate for Roman pontificates to that 
point and who, indeed, knew considerably more about the Roman 
See for the first two centuries after its foundation than he did 
about any other, not even excluding his venerable neighbor, the 
patriarchate of Antioch, knows suddenly nothing more. His 
references to the popes after Felix, the men who were his own 
contemporaries,””*® are of the briefest description. He can give 
their names and order of succession but not always the length 
of their terms and nothing whatever of their policies or careers. 
Such dates as he can muster are often confused and contradictory, 
with the consulates badly jumbled. For papal chronology in this 
period one must turn, therefore, to the Liberian Catalogue, drawn 
up at Rome under Liberius, some twenty-five or thirty years 


after Eusebius’ death.”*° That, however, becomes at this same | 


juncture curiously bare. In the earlier part, a few concise notices 
of events were inserted under the names of such bishops as 
Pontianus, Fabianus, Cornelius and Lucius, but now these too 
cease and we are left again with nothing but names and dates. 
Just as we have followed the Roman bishopric to the place where 
its claims to predominance have become defined to itself and 
widely asserted abroad and have even received the passing 
support of a tolerant emperor, the whole office recedes into 


279 Eusebius, speaking earlier of Xystus II, says that he is now recording 
events that have happened within his own lifetime. Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 27. 
280 Infra, p. 710. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 443 


obscurity both for us and for the men who tried to learn about it 
a little later.”** 

The first twenty-eight years of this period were a time of 
unexampled prosperity for the Church. It was countenanced 
and indulged by the rulers of the State as never before. Its 
membership is said to have doubled between the reign of Gal- 
lienus and the opening of the fourth century. Halls for worship 
were built without concealment in many parts of Rome. Chris- 
tians appeared in every rank of society, even within the circle 
of the imperial family. Eusebius, writing during the reign of 
Constantine, says of Maxentius that he “at first feigned our 
faith in order to please and flatter the Roman people.” *? Why 
at such a time did the Roman bishops stop communication with 
the brethren of the East or why were their letters, if they sent 
any, no longer preserved? Eutychianus and Gaius, whose pon- 
tificates taken together cover the years from 275 to 296, may 
have been men of no marked personal initiative. The eastern 
churches may have tacitly drawn off from Rome in dread of 
more interference. The emperors’ prolonged absences from Italy, 
followed by the decisive removal of Diocletian to Nicomedia in 
286, deprived the Roman bishops temporarily of imperial sanction 
for any efforts they might then think of making to bring the 
Christians of the Empire under a Roman head. But in our 
present ignorance we can frame no explanation that is not in- 
adequate as well as futile. 

After 303, the bitter edicts against Christianity and the grow- 
ing disorder in the government, culminating in the series of civil 
wars between the various rivals for the throne, undoubtedly did 
much to hinder intercourse between churches in different prov- 
inces. The sole surviving tradition regarding the Roman See at 
this time which bears any trace of authenticity, is the story that 
Marcellinus, bishop from 296 to 304, turned apostate under the 


281 During the fourth century disputes between the Roman bishop and the 
eastern churches, both parties searched the past for any precedents that might 
confirm their particular contentions but neither made any allusion that we can 
recognize to any event later than the time of Felix. 

282 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VIII, 14, 1. But Eusebius’ knowledge of 
the whole Roman situation is obviously quite hazy. The city was still far more 
pagan than Christian. 


A444 THE SEE OF PETER 


persecution. In Constantine’s reign, his name was in fact omitted 
from the Roman calendar of papal and other anniversaries. Any- 
thing as appalling, however, as the lapse of a bishop of Rome 
we should surely expect Eusebius to know and remark upon, for 
the rumor of it must infallibly have spread. But writing, as he 
does, while the memory of those terrible days was still vivid in 
his mind, he says explicitly that he intends to relate only incidents 
of heroism and triumph and will not mention those “ who were 
shaken by the persecution nor those who were shipwrecked of 
salvation and sank by their own choice in the depths of the 
flood.” **° He gives a roll of honor of bishops who faced martyr- 
dom unflinchingly and he does not include in it the bishop of 
Rome. In another connection entirely he speaks of Marcellinus 
and adds that he was ‘“ overtaken by the persecution.” ** The 
reader may make of it what he can. From Augustine, a century 
later, we hear that the sect of the Donatists, who denied the 
validity of sacraments performed by heretical or profane hands, 
regarded the Roman church as polluted on the ground that Mar- 
cellinus and three priests, Melchiades, Marcellus and Silvester, all 
of whom in turn subsequently became Roman bishops, had deliv- 
ered up the sacred books to the pagan magistrates and had offered 
incense to the pagan gods. Augustine admits that he is in dark- 
ness as to the facts but declares that the Donatists have no proofs 
to support their accusation and that therefore he prefers to 
disbelieve it.**° 7 

After Marcellinus, came an interregnum of seven years, dur- 
ing which, because of the intensity of persecution, no bishop was 
ordained at Rome. With the advent, however, of the tyrant 
Maxentius in Italy religious persecution ceased as such but the 
government was capricious and the situation remained unstable. 
Marcellus, who is listed in the Liberian Catalogue next to 

283 Eusebius, op. cit., VIII, 2, 3. On Marcellinus see L. Duchesne, Early 
History of the Christian Church, Vol. I, pp. 72-74. 

284 Eusebius, op. cit., VII, 32, 1. The phrase is singularly ambiguous. It 
implies disaster of some kind and lacks the tone of eulogy with which Eusebius 
invariably refers to martyrs or confessors. 

285 The Donatists were undoubtedly exaggerating when they included the 
three priests in their accusation. On them and their schism vide infra, pp. 450 ff., 


464 ff. In the fifth century, there was a pathetic legend of Marcellinus’ fall and 
remorseful recantation. L. R. Loomis, Book of the Popes, 36 and n. 2, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 445 


Marcellinus, is not mentioned at all by Eusebius. Perhaps, as 
Mommsen suggests, he was only a chief priest who undertook 
for a while the duties of bishop during the long vacancy.?* 
Popular legend, a century or two later, described his condemna- 
tion by Maxentius to menial labor in the palace stables.”*7 More 
trustworthy is his epitaph, erected some sixty years after his 
death by Bishop Damasus, that bears witness to his struggle with 
the inevitable problem of the lapsed, his insistence on strict dis- 
cipline in the teeth of stormy and violent opposition and his final 
banishment by Maxentius, who did not punish Christians for 
their Christianity but for what he looked upon as pertinacious 
breaches of the peace. Under Eusebius, Marcellus’ successor, 
the faction that stood for leniency in church discipline seems to 
have swelled to formidable proportions and to have elected a 
rival bishop, Heraclius, with the result that Maxentius was again 
provoked by their tumults to the point of deporting both Eusebius 
and his adversary. The comparative fullness of our information 
about similar crises in the Church of fifty years earlier makes it 
possible to read more meaning than we otherwise could into 
Damasus’ terse lines. After Eusebius’ disappearance, the Roman 
See once more was vacant for a year or two. 


Augustine, De Unico Baptismo; contra Petilianum, I, 16. 
Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XLIII, 610. 


Now what need is there of our clearing the bishops of 
the Roman church from the accusations and incredible 
slanders that he“ brings against them? Marcellinus and 
his priests, Melchiades,*’ Marcellus and Silvester, are 
charged by him with surrender of the sacred Scriptures 
and offerings of incense. But are they on that account 
convicted of it or are they convicted only through some 
palpable distortion of the documents? He says that they 


286 Introduction to Mommsen’s edition of the Liber Pontificalis, Monumenta 
Germaniae, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, I. 

287 L. R. Loomis, op. cit., 38-39. 

288 Je, Petilianus, an African Donatist. 

289 Miltiades is another form of the same name. 


446 THE SEE OF PETER 


were wicked and profane; I reply that they were innocent. 
Why should I take pains to prove my defense, when he has 
made not the slightest effort to prove his accusation? If 
there is any humanity in the world, I think we are more 
deserving of blame if we believe that persons unknown to 
-us, against whom their enemies bring a charge which they 
never support by any evidence, are guilty rather than inno- 
cent. For if by chance the truth turns out to be other than 
we supposed, at least one is doing one’s duty to humanity 
when, as a man, one suspects no evil of another man lightly 
nor gives easy credit to an accuser, since he who brings an 
accusation without a witness or any written proof may 
himself be shown to be a liar rather than a truthful plaintiff. 


Damasus, Inscription over the tomb of Marcellus.” ‘Text. 
L. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, I, 166, n. Io. 


A venerable pastor, for he bade the apostates mourn their 
guilt 

And was a bitter enemy to all wretches. 

Thence arose anger, hatred, discord, strife, 

Mutiny, bloodshed; the bonds of peace were loosed. 

Accused by one who in peace denied Christ, 

He was driven by the cruel tyrant ** from his own country. 

This in brief has Damasus ascertained and recorded, 

That the people might know the virtue of Marcellus. 


Damasus, Inscription over the tomb of Eusebius.’ ‘Text. 
L. Duchesne, op. cit., I, 167, n. 5. 


DaMAsus, THE BisHop, ERECTED THIS 


Heraclius forbade the apostates to grieve for their sins. 
Eusebius taught the wretched to mourn their guilt. 


290 Marcellus was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla. Damasus set up his 
tablet in the church of Silvester, which had been built meantime over the cemetery. 

291 Maxentius. 

292 The tomb of Eusebius was in a chamber of the cemetery of Callistus. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 447 


The people were rent in factions and anger mounted, 

Mutiny, bloodshed, war, discord, strife. 

Both were driven alike from the temple by the cruel 
tyrant,” 

Though the pastor was keeping unbroken the bonds of 
peace. | 

Gladly he suffered exile under the Lord’s judgment; 

On the Sicilian shore he departed from earth and life. 


To Eusesius, BisHop AND MARTYR. 


293 J.e., both Eusebius and Heraclius, leader of the party of laxity, were 
banished by Maxentius. Eusebius seems to have held office only four months. 
For the dates of these bishops see the Liberian Catalogue, infra, p. 714. 


PART Itt 
THE SUPREME BISHOPRIC OF THE 
UNIVERSAL CHURCH 


MILTIADES 


(311-314) 

Miltiades had been bishop for something over a year when 
Constantine, in October, 312, defeated Maxentius and set up in 
“‘the most public place ” in Rome his own statue bearing the sign 
of Christ; yet of Miltiades we hear singularly little. Eusebius re- 
lates how Constantine was met on his memorable entry into the 
city by “all the members of the Senate and the other notables, 
with the whole Roman people and the women and children,” * but 
says not a word of the Roman Christians, whose rejoicing must 
have been the greatest of all and with whom Eusebius would 
naturally have felt the deepest sympathy. Whatever his sources 
of information as to this thrilling event, they evidently did not 
include a letter from the Roman church. The rescript that issued 
presently from Constantine’s palace, providing for state grants 
of aid to the churches, named Hosius, a Spaniard, bishop of 
Cordova, not Miltiades, as the emperor’s minister and councillor 
in ecclesiastical affairs. | 

Miltiades, however, has several achievements to his credit. 
Before the victory at the Milvian Bridge, the churches of the 
city, under his direction, had returned to something approaching 
harmony and order and had secured from Maxentius a writ for 
the restitution of the property confiscated during the persecution. 
Armed with this document and with another from the praetorian 
prefect, the deacons had gone to the city prefect and had re- 
ceived from him their lands and buildings.? Upon the installation 

1 Historia Ecclesiastica, IX, 9, 9. It is hardly necessary to state here that the 
legend that attributed Constantine’s conversion to Bishop Silvester is altogether 
fictitious, an invention, perhaps, of the fifth century. On this legend see C. B. 
Coleman, Constantine the Great and Christianity (New York, 1914), Pt. II, chaps. 


I and V. 
2 Augustine, Breviculus Collationis cum Donatistis, II, 34-36. 


448 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 449 


of the new régime, Miltiades must have made some kind of 
meritorious impression upon some member of the imperial family 
to obtain, as he did soon, the gift of the stately old palace of 
the Laterani on the Coelian Hill, the property of Constantine’s 
wife Fausta, to be used henceforth as an episcopal residence. 
In the autumn of 313, he held a synod in this “ house of the 
church,” as we shall see. Either he or his successor, Silvester, 
seems to have begun the construction of a baptistery and a 
basilica adjacent to the palace, the originals of the present 
Lateran cathedral.* No wonder that a new and appropriate note 
of grandeur crept into Roman tradition, when her bishop held his 
court in princely halls.‘ 

Other spectacular gifts came to the church from its imperial 
benefactors. Either in 312 or, more probably, on his second visit 
to Rome in 315, Constantine ordered the erection of a large and 
imposing basilica over the tomb of the apostle Peter in the Vati- 
can district ° and of two smaller structures over the tombs of 
Paul and Lawrence respectively, outside the walls. Helena, the 
emperor’s mother, made her home at intervals in the Sessorian 
Palace, not far from the Lateran, where she turned one of the 
halls into a basilica to receive the relics of the True Cross and 
other treasures from Jerusalem.’ Thereafter it was no longer 
necessary to travel to Syria to find objects sanctified by the 
touch of the Lord. Helena had also a villa on the Via Labicana, 
three miles from the city, near a cemetery where lay the bodies 
of two martyrs who had suffered in the recent persecution. She 
built a small basilica over their graves and arranged that at her 
own death her body should be transported from the East to be 
interred in a mausoleum on the same spot.* Two of Constantine’s 
daughters took up their abode for a while in a villa on the Via 

8 For a description of the fourth century basilica and its furniture see L. R. 
Loomis, The Book of the Popes, 47-53. 

2 SUPTa, PP. 105, III, 117. 

5 Supra, p. 104. L. R. Loomis, op. cit., 53-57. 

6 L. R. Loomis, op. cit., 57-58, 61-63. Laurentius was the name of one of 
the four deacons who were executed with Xystus II, in 258. Supra, p. 425. He 
had by this time become the hero of a popular legend. 

7 This basilica was itself called ‘‘ Jerusalem.” L. R. Loomis, op. cit., 58-60. 
It is now Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. On the legend of Helena see C. B. Cole- 


pan, mn cit., Pt. II, chap. II, 2. 
L. R. ‘Loomis, op. cit., 63-65. Eusebius, Vita Constantiul: Il, 47. 


450 THE SEE OF PETER 


Nomentana and were buried in the baptistery now called Santa 
Constanza.° 

But all was not instantly peace and affluence throughout 
the West, because an emperor had turned Christian and there was 
prosperity in the church at Rome. Neither the material nor the 
spiritual damages of the persecution could be everywhere so 
speedily undone. Constantine, to be sure, arranged for grants 
from the state treasury to assist bishops in every city under his 
sway to defray the expenses of repairs and of the resumption of 
religious services on a large scale.*° Eusebius preserves his letter 
of instruction to Caecilian, bishop of Carthage, metropolitan of 
the three provinces of northwestern Africa.* But one result 
of this well-meant letter was to confront the emperor with his 
first ecclesiastical dilemma, namely the necessity of deciding 
between two rival church organizations in the same city as to 
which was to be the proper recipient for his bounties. 

The situation in Africa was not altogether unlike that created 
sixty years earlier by the persecution of Decius. Mensurius, 
bishop of Carthage at the beginning of the century, had himself 
evaded or compromised with the edicts of 303 and 304 that 
required the surrender of all copies of the Scriptures and the 
offering of pagan sacrifices of incense, and had tried to suppress 
the confessors and others of his flock who in their enthusiasm 
for martyrdom were provoking the magistrates to greater severity 
and bringing down extreme penalties upon their own heads. As 
a consequence, he and several other bishops like him in the 
vicinity, particularly one Felix of Aptonga, who was said to have 
given over the Scriptures without resistance or protest, had been 
denounced as traitors, “ traditores,” by the zealous party in the 
Carthaginian church and by many bishops outside, including a 
large group in Numidia. On the death of Mensurius, Caecilian, 


® L. R. Loomis, op. cit., 60-61. Ammianus Marcellinus, XXI, 1. Con- 
stantina built the basilica of Sant’ Agnese. 

10 From this time on, the Church begins to rely for support more and more 
upon income from its lands and other forms of endowment, bestowed upon it by 
state officials or private individuals. The old system of dependence on the collec- 
tion of a multitude of small contributions drops slowly into abeyance. E. Hatch, 
The Organization of the Early Christian Churches (London, 1918), pp. 150 sqq. 

11 Infra, pp. 454-455. An example of the similar letters, sent by Constantine 
to the bishops of the East after his victory over Licinius, is furnished by Eusebius, 
Vita Constantini, II, 46. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE A451 


who had been a deacon under him and who was also branded by 
the strict opposition, was elected bishop by the majority of the 
congregation and regularly ordained by Felix of Aptonga and two 
other bishops from the neighborhood. ‘Thereupon some seventy 
bishops from Numidia and other outlying regions had hastened 
to Carthage, joined with the disaffected clergy in the city and 
constituted themselves a synod. Acting in that capacity, they 
had pronounced Caecilian’s ordination void, on the ground that 
the rite had been performed by the polluted hands of the “ tra- 
ditor””’ Felix, had condemned him and all his adherents, and 
elected one Majorinus, a reader, as bishop of Carthage in 
Caecilian’s stead.** Now, at the news of Constantine’s conver- 
sion to Christianity and of the stream of imperial largess that 
had begun to flow in the direction of the Church, this same party 
started to agitate for the recognition of Majorinus rather than 
Caecilian by the State. As long as the State had been indifferent 
or hostile, it had classed all Christians, heretical, schismatic or 
orthodox together, as equally criminal before the law. Now that 
it had chosen to become an interested benefactor, it at once 
found itself obliged to discriminate. It could not conceivably 
support two sects or two bishops at the same time in the same 
place. 

Constantine seems to have heard early, perhaps from Hosius 
or Miltiades, that there was trouble in the African church, for in 
his letter to Caecilian, already mentioned, he invited him to call 
on the local proconsul, Anulinus, for aid against any corrupt 
persons who might be fomenting disturbance. He had already, 
apparently, instructed Anulinus to do his best by argument and 
persuasion to bring the discordant factions back to unity. But the 
party of Majorinus was not to be appeased or silenced. Anulinus 
wrote to the emperor that a deputation had waited on him, 
bringing two petitions which they had asked him to forward 
directly to Constantine. In other words, like the Christians of 
Antioch forty years previously, with property at stake, they had 
appealed to the government to distinguish between varieties of 
religious belief and morals.** In this instance, however, the 


12 This, of course, was not a regular method of electing a bishop. Supra, 
p. 401 and n, 208. 13 Supra, Pp. 439, 441. 


Ase THE SEE OF PETER 


complainants requested the appointment of ecclesiastical judges 
from Gaul to hear their arguments. Constantine was himself in 
Gaul when the petitions reached him. The writers may have 
intended to suggest for his convenience a choice of men in his 
own vicinity. But it is also not impossible that they hoped to 
prevent the sending of their case to Rome, where, they may have 
felt, a decision would tend to go against schismatics and a bishop 
whose election had been irregular. 

Constantine is said to have been annoyed by the appeal.** 
He saw the Church of the Supreme Being not united in love and 
thankfulness for its mercies but stubborn and fractious and full 
of recriminations and bitterness. However, he named three 
Gallic bishops to sit as judges and summoned Caecilian and ten 
African bishops from each party in the dispute to appear for 
the proceedings. But he appointed Rome as the place of trial 
and wrote to Miltiades, sending him copies of the documents 
received and committing the further conduct of the case entirely 
into his hands, only advising that the affair be given a thorough 
investigation and settled in such a way as to put an end to 
divisions in the Church catholic. Whether Constantine was con- 
sciously following the precedent set by Aurelian in 274 or whether 
Hosius had simply advised him to submit a controversy involving 
another metropolitan to the Roman See, it is impossible to tell. 
The tribunal met on October second, 313, in a hall of the Lateran 
palace. By a later arrangement with the emperor, Miltiades 
added fifteen Italian bishops to his board of judges, thus chang- 
ing completely the complexion of the court. The accusers of 
Caecilian were headed by Bishop Donatus of Casae Nigrae 
in Numidia. Majorinus, who had not been cited, did not at- 
tend. 

From the accounts of Optatus of Mileve and Augustine of 
Hippo, the two famous Africans who years afterward engaged 
in written debate with the Donatists of their generation and who, 
in the course of their polemics, reviewed in some detail the 
history of the whole quarrel, we can reconstruct in outline the 
events of the so-called Synod of 313. It held three sessions on 


14 But the remark which Optatus attributes to him seems scarcely in charac- 
ter, at least at this period of his reign. Infra, p. 459. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 453 


three different days. On the first, the Donatists ** seem to have 
given vent to loud, excited talking and confused, group accusa- 
tions. They were not prepared to plead in due, legal form, with 
one spokesman assuming the role of plaintiff on behalf of the 
rest. They presented no official records or witnesses. Their 
leader, Donatus, was himself at once charged by the Caecilianists 
with personal transgression of orthodox rules. The fact that 
he had undeniably performed second baptisms meant nothing in 
Africa, where such baptisms had been common ever since the 
time of Cyprian,** but it must have helped to prejudice the 
Italians against him. The Donatists finally declared that they 
had not their plaintiff, witnesses, etc., with them and that they 
would produce them another day. But when, on the second day, 
the court assembled, they did not appear. The third day, the 
judges proceeded to vote in turn, Miltiades last of all, in favor 
of continuing communion with Caecilian as lawful bishop of 
Carthage. Miltiades went on further to condemn Donatus as 
the leading spirit in the schism and to propose, as a mode of 
bringing peace to the African provinces, the recognition in every 
other contested city but Carthage of the bishop who had been 
first ordained there and the speedy transference to another see 
of whoever found himself by this measure dispossessed.** He 
then sent a report of the verdict to Constantine. 

The emperor was not, apparently, wholly satisfied. The 
synod had confirmed the regular organization at Carthage but 
it had done nothing to pacify the serious opposition in that city 
and had disposed in too summary a fashion of their charges 
against Caecilian. He ordered both Caecilian and Donatus to 
wait a while longer in Italy, until two other bishops, who had 
not been at the synod, could visit Carthage and sound out the 
chances of having a new bishop elected whom every “ catholic ”’ 
Christian would accept. All attempt at conciliation, however, 
proved futile. The visiting bishops grew indignant at the uproar 
the Donatists were making over the treatment of their case at 


15 We use this name here for brevity. The party did not actually receive the 
appellation of Donatists until after the death of Majorinus and the election of 
another Donatus as bishop of Carthage. 16 Supra, pp. 395, 410-411. 

17 This, of course, was in contrast to the Donatists’ position, that they could 
recognize no ordination as valid which was not conferred by unstained and 


AS54 THE SEE OF PETER 


Rome and concluded that the Caecilianists, who were at least 
on good terms with the brethren abroad, should be considered 
“ catholic,” took communion with them and sailed for home.7® 
Caecilian and Donatus slipped back to Africa and the schism 
grew hotter than ever. The Donatists sent a second, fervid 
protestation to the emperor, to the effect that the trial at Rome 
had been the hurried work of a few men and that they had not 
yet received a fair hearing.*® Constantine seems to have felt 
that they had some justification for their complaints. At all 
events, so far as our records show, he never again employed a 
Roman bishop in the execution of any of his ecclesiastical enter- 
prises. 


On Constantine and his church policy see all histories of the Church and 
the period and such special studies as G. Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme (3 
vols., 3rd ed., Paris, 1898), Vol. I; M. A. Huttmann, Toleration under 
Constantine (New York, 1914); C. B. Coleman, Constantine the Great and 
Christianity (New York, 1914); on the Donatists, C. J. Hefele, Histoire des 
Conciles (8 vols., Paris, 1907-1921), Vol. I, Pt. I; L. Duchesne, Le Dossier 
du Donatisme in Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire (Paris, 1890), Vol. X, 
pp. 589-650; L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church (trans. 
from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. II, pp. 
79-97; F. Martroye, Une Tentative de Révolution Sociale en Afrique in, 
Revue des Questions Historiques (Paris, 1904), Vol. LXXVI (Nouvelle 
Serie, Vol. XXXII), pp. 353-416. 


THE DOoONATIST TRIAL AT ROME 


Constantine, Letier to Caecilian, quoted by Eusebius, His- 
toria Ecclesiastica, X, 6. Text. Eusebius Werke (Die 
griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller), 11’, 890. 


Constantine Augustus to Caecilian, bishop of Carthage. 
Whereas it is our pleasure that grants should be made 


authoritative hands. The Roman position was, as it had been earlier during the 
contest over heretical baptism, that a sacrament rightly performed was efficacious 
by its own virtue. Cyprian himself had insisted that once a bishop was ordained 
in any city it was impossible to set up another. Supra, pp. 350, 372. 

18 On the previous use and significance of the word “ catholic,” vide supra, 
p. 286. 

19 For this, see Constantine’s letters of summons to the Council of Arles, infra, 
Pp. 477-480. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 455 


in all the provinces of Africa and Numidia and Mauretania 
to ministers of the lawful and most holy catholic religion, 
in order to defray their expenses, I have sent word to Ursus, 
the illustrious head of finance in Africa, and have directed 
him to arrange to pay to your excellency three thousand 
folles.° Do you, therefore, when you have received this 
sum of money, give orders that it be distributed among all 
the persons I have mentioned, in accordance with the in- 
structions sent to you by Hosius.” If you should find that 
anything more is needed to fulfil this my purpose for them 
all, do you without hesitation demand whatever else you 
discover to be necessary from Heracleides, the treasurer of 
our funds. For I charged him, when he was with me, that 
if your excellency should ask him for money, he should see 
that it was paid without delay. And, inasmuch as I have 
heard that some persons of disorderly character are plotting 
to turn the people from the most holy and catholic Church 
by methods of base corruption,” you are hereby informed 
that I commanded Anulinus, the proconsul, and also Patri- 
cius, vicar of the prefects, when they were here, to give 
due attention especially to this matter among all their 
other business, and not to ignore such a situation whenever 
it occurred. Wherefore, if you should observe any such 
persons persisting in this folly, do you go straightway to 
the aforesaid judges and report it to them, that they may 
correct them, as I commanded them when they were here. 
The divinity of the great God preserve you for many 
years. 

20 A folle was, perhaps, 208 denarii, in which case the amount here mentioned 
would be equivalent to more than ninety thousand dollars at the present day. It 
is not, however, certain that this was the value. 

21 Supra, p. 448. Hosius, bishop of Cordova, was Constantine’s most intimate 
religious adviser from the early days of his conversion to the end of his life. How 
the two men first came into contact we do not know. Hosius lived, however, to 


deny the right of any emperor to meddle with the Church. Infra, p. 579. 
22 The reference is, in all likelihood, to the Donatists. 


456 THE SEE OF PETER 


Anulinus, Letter to Constantine, quoted by Augustine, Epis- 
tolae, LXXXVIII, 2. Text. Ed. by A. Goldbacher, 
Corpus Soriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XXXIV, 
2, 408. 


Anulinus, consularis, proconsul of Africa, to Constantine 
Augustus.” 

The welcome and adored, celestial communication of 
your Majesty to Caecilian and to those who obey his leader- 
ship and are called his clergy has been by my care engrossed 
among my own poor records. I have urged these parties 
to reach an agreement by mutual consent and, inasmuch as 
they are now, by your Majesty’s clemency, exempt from 
every public burden,” to guard the sanctity of catholic law 
and to uphold a right sense of reverence and the divine 
ordinances. But a few days since, there came to me among 
a crowd of people some persons who think that action ought 
to be taken against Caecilian and they presented to me a 
sealed packet, wrapped in leather, and a paper without a 
seal and earnestly entreated me to forward them to your 
Majesty’s sacred and august court, as your Majesty’s 
humble servant has hereby done, Caecilian meanwhile con- 
tinuing as he was. The documents from these persons are 
here enclosed, that your Majesty may be able to frame a 
judgment regarding the whole affair. I have sent both — 
documents, the one in a leather case with the label: “ An 
account by the catholic Church of the charges against 
Caecilian, presented by the party of Majorinus,” the other 
without a seal, attached to the same leather case. 

Sent from Carthage, April 15, in the third consulship of 
our lord Constantine Augustus. 

23 The name of the person addressed is omitted in Augustine’s text. 


24 Constantine had already begun the policy of exempting the Christian clergy 
from onerous civil duties, such as service as curiales. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 457 


Constantine, Letter to Miltiades, quoted by Eusebius, His- 
torta Ecclestastica, X, 5, 18-20. Text. Eusebius Werke 
(Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten 
drei Jahrhunderte), IL’, 887-888. 


Constantine Augustus to Miltiades, bishop of the 
Romans, and to Marcus.” 

Whereas many communications have been sent me by 
Anulinus, the illustrious proconsul of Africa, in which he 
reports that Caecilian, bishop of the city of Carthage, has 
been accused on numerous grounds by some of his colleagues 
in Africa, and whereas it seems to me a very grave matter 
that in those provinces which Divine Providence has chosen 
to entrust to my devotion and in which there is a vast 
multitude of people, the masses are evidently pursuing ways 
of error and dividing, so to speak, into two hosts, with 
their bishops likewise at variance, I have determined that 
Caecilian himself, with ten of the bishops who seem to be 
his accusers and ten others whom he may choose as needful 
for his defense, should take ship to Rome, in order that 
there in the presence of yourselves and of Reticius and 
Maternus and Marinus, your colleagues, whom I have 
commanded to go at once to Rome for this purpose, he 
may be heard in whatever way you deem compatible with 
the most holy law. 

And, in order that you may have the fullest compre- 
hension of all this business, I have appended to this letter 
copies of the documents sent to me by Anulinus and have 
also sent them to your colleagues aforesaid. On reading 
them, your excellency will consider how the case may be 
most thoroughly investigated and justly decided.” For it 


25 This may be some prominent priest, perhaps the man who became bishop 
of Rome for a few months in 336. 

26 Bishops of Autun, Cologne and Arles respectively. These were the judges 
from Gaul, for whom the accusers of Caecilian had asked. Supra, p. 452. 

27 It seems clear from this letter that the charges against Caecilian had struck 
Constantine as sufficiently serious to demand, as he says, thorough investigation. 
His tone toward the whole situation has changed since his letter to Anulinus. 


458 THE SEE OF PETER 


has not escaped your attention that I have such reverence 
for the lawful catholic Church that I wish you to leave no 
schism or division whatever anywhere. May the divinity 
of the great God preserve you, most honored Sir, for many 
years. 


Optatus of Mileve,** De Schismate Donatistarum, I, 22-24. 
Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 
XXVI, 25-27. 


But, inasmuch as I hear that members of your associa- 
tion [Donatists] have some kind of records for use in their 
litigations, we must inquire which of these are to be ac- 
cepted as reliable, which are consistent with reason and 
which harmonize with the truth. Perhaps, whatever you 
have may prove to be mingled with lies. Our records are 
supported by lawsuits on both sides, by the conflicting argu- 
ments of the parties, by the final verdicts and by the letters 
of Constantine. As for your comment upon us: ‘“ What 
have Christians to do with kings? Or what have bishops 
in common with the palace? ” if it is wrong to make ac- 
quaintance with kings, the whole blame sweeps down upon 
you. For your predecessors, Lucian, Dignus, Nasutius, 
Capito, Fidentius and others offered their petition to the 
emperor Constantine, who hitherto had known nothing of 
such matters. I have written here a copy of it. “‘ We 
beseech you, Constantine, noblest of emperors, son of a 
just house, whose father alone among the emperors did not 
press on the persecution and saved Gaul from that out- 
rage, seeing that in Africa there are disputes between us 


28 On Optatus vide supra, p. 110. The following description of the synod held 
by Miltiades, with the two passages we give subsequently from Augustine, covers 
most of the information we have about it. There are references to it, however, in 
many other places. L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, Vol. U1, 
Pp. 79-80, notes. 

29 Constantinus Chlorus, the father of Constantine, restrained the persecution 
of Christians in Gaul and Britain. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 459 


and the other bishops, we beg your reverence to command 
that judges be appointed for us from Gaul. Sent from 
Lucian, Dignus, Nasutius, Capito, Fidentius and other 
bishops of the party of Donatus.” * 

When Constantine read this, he replied in great indig- 
nation. In his reply, he granted their request but he said: 
“You ask of me a judgment in this world, while I myself 
am awaiting the judgment of Christ.” ** However, the 
judges were appointed, Maternus of Cologne, Reticius of 
Autun and Marinus of Arles. The three Gauls and fifteen 
more, who were Italians, came to the city of Rome and met 
in the palace of Fausta in the Lateran,” in the fourth 
consulship of Constantine and the third of Licinius, on the 
second of October, the sixth day of the week. When they 
had assembled, there were present Miltiades, bishop of the 
city of Rome, and Reticius, Maternus and Marinus, the 
bishops from Gaul, and Merocles from Milan, Florianus 
from Sinna,* Zoticus from Quintianum,* Stennius from 
Rimini, Felix from Florence of the Tuscans, Gaudentius 
from Pisa, Constantius from Faenza, Proterius from Capua, 
Theophilus from Beneventum, Sabinus from ‘Terracina, 
Secundus from Praeneste, Felix from Three Taverns,” 
Maximus from Ostia, Evander from Ursinum,** and Dona- 
tian from Forum Claudii.*’ 

When these nineteen bishops had taken their seats, the 
case of Donatus and Caecilian was brought before them. 
Each of them concurred in the judgment against Donatus, 
who confessed to administering second baptism ** and 

30 This may be the unsealed petition mentioned by Anulinus, supra, p. 456. 

31 This sounds as if Optatus had inserted here for effect a remark ascribed to 
Constantine, perhaps, but on some different and later occasion. 

32 Supra, Pp. 449. 

33 Probably Siena. 

34 A town in Rhaetia, now become the country village, Kiintzen. 

35 Probably the modern Cisterna, near Rome. 

36 Perhaps Urbino. . 


37 Unknown. 
88 On this point vide supra, p, 453. 


460 THE SEE OF PETER 


to laying his hands upon bishops who had lapsed,” a practice 
unknown in the Church. Witnesses introduced by Donatus 
admitted that they had nothing to say against Caecilian.* 
Caecilian was declared innocent by the verdict of all the 
bishops just enumerated, in particular by the verdict of 
Miltiades, with which the trial closed, in the following 
words: ‘‘ Whereas it is evident from their own statement 
that Caecilian is not accused by these persons who came 
hither with Donatus and it is also evident that Donatus 
himself does not prove any charges against him, I vote that 
he be restored to ecclesiastical communion, with standing 
unimpaired, as he deserves.” ; 


Augustine, Breviculus Collationis cum Donatistis, XII. 
Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XLIII, 637. 


Then in due order began to be read the report of the 
episcopal trial held by Melchiades, bishop of Rome, and 
the other Gallic and Italian bishops with him, in the city 
of Rome. At the opening of the report, that is, in the 
account of the proceedings of the first day, when the ac- 
cusers of Caecilian, who had been sent there, declared that 
they had nothing to say against him and when Donatus of 
Casae Nigrae was convicted to his face of having created 


a schism at Carthage while Caecilian was still but a deacon,* 


— for from the schism at Carthage arose the Donatist party 
in opposition to the catholic Church, — these same enemies 
of Caecilian promised that on another day they would bring 


39 This may mean that Donatus had either admitted to penance or had re- 
ordained bishops who had apostatized. A bishop who had lapsed was not at this 
time absolved. Compare Cyprian (supra, p. 402) on the apostate bishop of Spain. 

40 The Donatists may have said that their charges were not against Caecilian’s 
personal character but against the circumstances of his election or that they had 
not yet formulated them as they would do. Compare Augustine’s account, on 
this same page. 

41 This also sounds as if the Donatist charges were not aimed against Caecilian 
in person so much as against the policies and party which he represented. 


am es P i A ‘ 
es 4 7 a 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 461 


forward the persons necessary for the trial, whom they were 
accused of having withdrawn.” And after they had uttered 
this falsehood, they refused to appear again at the trial. 


Augustine, Epistolae, XLIII, v, 16. Text. Corpus Scrip- 
torum Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, XXXIV, 2, 98. 


Then how fine a sentence was at the last pronounced 
by the blessed Melchiades himself! How gentle, how up- 
right, how wise and pacific! He did not attempt by it to ex- 
clude from his fellowship his colleagues in whom no guilt 
had been proved, but after putting the heavy blame solely 
on Donatus, whom he had discovered to be the leader of 
the whole mischief, he gave the rest a free opportunity to 
recover their sound minds and was ready to open com- 
munication even with those who were known to have been 
ordained by Majorinus. He proposed that wherever there 
were two bishops, as the result of the schism, the one first 
ordained should be confirmed and that another flock should 
be found to be governed by the second. 


Optatus of Mileve, op. cit., I, 26. Text. Op. cit., 28. 


|The emperor is informed of this decision.” He orders 
both Donatus and Caecilian to remain for a while in Italy, 
dispatching Caecilian to Brescia.] Then two bishops, 
Eunomius and Olympius, were sent to Africa so that now 


42 In the letter from which we next quote, Epistolae, XLIII, v and vi, 
Augustine gives first a longer but not much more definite description of the 
behavior of the Donatists on the first day of the trial. He says, however, that 
they were asked which one of them was Caecilian’s accuser and that they replied 
that no one person but all the people of Majorinus’ party accused him. They 
were then told that in a suit the accusation could not come from a crowd but 
must be made in the name of some person or persons, that they must produce 
their plaintiffs, witnesses, etc., in proper form. It was also said that there had 
been persons present ready to take such parts but that Donatus had withdrawn 
them. Donatus promised to produce them another day but he did not keep his 
promise or reappear himself in court. 

43 Optatus does not say that Miltiades reported it to the emperor but 
Augustine does. 


462 THE SEE OF PETER 


that the two heads had been removed, they might ordain 
one. And they came and abode in Carthage for forty days, 
in order to determine where was the catholic Church.” But 
the insurgent party of Donatus would not allow them to do 
this and every day there were tumults stirred up by partisan 
zeal. The final sentence of these same bishops, Eunomius 
and Olympius, may be read as follows: they said that the 
catholic Church was the one that was spread through all the 
world and that the verdict delivered some time earlier by 
the nineteen bishops could not be annulled. So they held 
communion with Caecilian’s clergy and returned home. We 
have a volume of records of these events and whoever wishes 
may read this toward the end. Then, first, Donatus of his 
own accord went back to Carthage. When Caecilian heard 
of it, he hastened to join his people. In this way the 
struggle of the parties began over again. 


SILVESTER I 


(314-335) 

Our ignorance regarding Silvester, who succeeded Miltiades 
and was bishop at Rome for more than twenty eventful years, 
is so dense that popular fancy in later times has tried to com- 
pensate for it by weaving a wonderful mass of legends about his 
name. ‘‘A Roman bishop must have had some part in such rare 
deeds,” the legends seem to say. ‘‘ What existing writers failed 
to relate we shall supply by the power of faith and imagination.” 
Unfortunately these picturesque fables were the work of men 
who knew too little history to make them plausible. Much as 
one might like to believe that Silvester healed the great Con- 
stantine of leprosy and baptized him in the Lateran font, one is 
compelled to incredulity upon learning from contemporary sources 


44 Te., the envoys were instructed to make an impartial effort to reéstablish 
the Carthaginian church on the broad foundations of the catholic faith and fellow- 
ship and to bring about the election of a new bishop, who had not been involved 
in the disputes arising out of the persecution. After forty days, they gave up their 
task in despair and sided with the party already recognized by the orthodox organi- 
zation elsewhere. On the use of the word “ catholic,” vide supra, pp. 240, n. 11, 286. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 463 


that Constantine’s conversion had taken place before he set foot 
in Rome and before Silvester became bishop and that his baptism 
occurred after Silvester’s death and just before his own in far- 
away Nicomedia.*® As late as the eighth century, however, the 
legendary tendency was still working on Silvester, producing the 
audacious forgery of the Donation of Constantine, in which 
Constantine’s choice of his new capital was explained by his 
pious desire to leave Silvester in unrivalled majesty at Rome.*® 

As a matter of fact, the dazzling emperor, whose figure looms 
so large in all the authentic histories of his reign as to leave little 
space for any other,*’ seems, after his one unsatisfactory experi- 
ment with Miltiades, to have paid scant attention to the bishop 
of the old capital. We know from an allusion in a later document 
that Silvester was once “‘ accused by sacrilegious men ” and that 
he “carried his cause” for judgment to Constantine.** It is 
possible that this accusation originated with the Donatists, who, 
it may be remembered, charged all Roman bishops with pollution 
who were either associates or successors of the “ traditor ”? Mar- 
cellinus.*° If this supposition be correct, the case may have been 


45 Eusebius gives us the fullest account of these occurrences. Supra, p. 97. 
See reference to C. B. Coleman’s Constantine the Great, supra, p. 448, n. 1. The 
modern Breviarium Romanum, in the office for December 31, St. Silvester’s anni- 
versary, still preserves an attenuated remnant of the old legend. ‘ He zealously 
wrought upon Constantine .. . to protect and extend the Christian religion. He, 
as the ancient tradition of the Roman church attests, had Constantine recognize 
the images of the apostles, washed him in holy baptism and cleansed him from the 
leprosy of unbelief. ... While Silvester was pope, the first Council of Nicaea 
was held, where in the presence of his legates, who presided, and of Constantine 
and of three hundred and eighteen bishops, the holy and catholic faith was ex- 
pounded and Arius and his followers were condemned. At the request of the 
Fathers, Silvester confirmed this council in a synod which he held at Rome.” The 
text goes on to enumerate some apocryphal decrees issued by Silvester and his 
imaginary synod. 

46 The latest text and translation of the Donation are contained in Coleman’s 
edition of the treatise of Lorenzo Valla upon it, published recently by the Yale 
Press. Platina, the Vatican librarian, who in 1479 produced what was long con- 
sidered an authoritative set of Lives of the Popes and who knew the histories of 
Socrates and Sozomen, as well as Valla’s devastating criticisms, maintained the 
truth of the Donation and quoted largely from it. See his Silvester. The ques- 
tion of the genuineness or falsity of the document was seriously debated as late 
as the eighteenth century. 

47 Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, all see Constantine in the forefront every- 
where and the story of his reign is the story of his acts, except in the matter of 
the Arian controversy. 

48 Infra, p. 671. This act was cited as ground for the claim later in the 
century that the Roman bishop should be subject to trial by no other bishop but 
only by the emperor. 

49 Supra, p. 444. 


464 THE SEE OF PETER 


tried between 315 and 321, when Constantine was still making 
spasmodic efforts to settle the Donatist disturbances. But this 
is pure conjecture. We are told nothing whatever as to the 
circumstances or the outcome. 

Immediately after Silvester’s accession, in January, 314, a 
council of bishops from all the West was convoked at Arles by 
the emperor to review the decision reached a few months earlier 
at Rome by Silvester’s predecessor, Miltiades, with regard to the 
Donatist revolt against Caecilian of Carthage.”° The letters sent 
out by Constantine to the bishops from Britain to Pannonia and 
Africa are represented for us by the one addressed to Chrestus, 
bishop of Syracuse. We have also the letter which he despatched 
to the vicar or civil governor of the disordered region of Africa. 
The phraseology of these letters is suggestive as to Constantine’s 


state of mind. He is irritated by the refusal of the Donatists to 


accept the verdict of Rome and acutely sensitive to the fact that 
persons who ought to be considering ‘‘ their own salvation and 
the reverence due to our most holy doctrine” and living “in 
brotherly and harmonious accord ” are making themselves ridicu- 
lous to the observant pagans by spiteful wranglings. None the 
less, he states fairly the Donatist grounds for dissatisfaction with 
the trial at Rome and proposes to give the complaints against 
Caecilian a more thorough airing before “a large number ” and 
so to put a stop to the disgrace. It seems likely that in his eyes 
the Roman bishop and his court had actually failed to do full 
justice. Hereafter, during his whole life, he referred his ecclesi- 
astical difficulties not to the See of Rome but to representative 
gatherings of the episcopate, the larger the better. His own lack 
of interest in the city of Rome and his own ambition to promote 
a sense of organic unity in the Empire may, of course, have had 
something to do with his preference for general councils, which 
might be called anywhere and which brought men from great 
distances together, over synods of Italians sitting at the Lateran. 
Whatever his motive, his powerful adherence went thenceforth 
to the federal rather than to the monarchical theory of the 
episcopate. 


50 Supra, pp. 459-461. 


—— 
nT ee a TOTS eT 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 465 


The gathering of bishops at Arles was the first that had yet 
been held representative of more than a local, provincial branch 
of the Church. It included three bishops from Britain, six from 
Spain, one from Dalmatia, nine from the greater churches of 
Italy and Sicily, such as Ostia, Portus, Capua, Syracuse, Milan 
and Aquileia, sixteen from Gaul and delegates from nine cities 
in Africa.” Silvester himself chose not to be present. He seems 
to have explained in excuse that it was impossible for him to 
leave the holy seats of the apostles.°? He sent, however, two 
priests and two deacons to speak for him. We have no informa- 
tion as to the council’s proceedings more than the little conveyed 
in the letter which, at the close of its sessions, it addressed to 
Silvester. But it was, as we have seen, an assemblage of western 
men, accustomed from of old to defer to the opinion of the one 
apostolic church in their midst. Silvester need not have feared 
any criticism, tacit or expressed, of Miltiades’ conduct nor the 
Donatists have hoped for any sympathy. They were now branded 
as dangerous to law and tradition. Caecilian was again exoner- 
ated and his party recognized as the catholic church of Africa. 
A canon was enacted to provide that clergy could not be deposed 

s “traditores ” without the evidence of official documents from 
the magistrates, and that clergy who had been consecrated by 
“traditores ” should be regarded as truly ordained, if they were 
themselves worthy to hold office. 

Then, with encouragement, perhaps, from Constantine, the 
council seized the advantage offered by the unusual assembly 
to reach an understanding on various other mooted points that 
had been the seeds of difference in the past. It resolved, for 
example, that the churches everywhere should all take care in the 
future to observe Easter on the same day and that notice of the 

51 For a list of churches represented at Arles, see the signatures appended to 
the canons of the council as given in G. D. Mansi, Amplissima Collectio, Vol. II, 
pp. 470-477. The three Gallic bishops and two, at least, out of the fifteen Italian 
bishops who had sat in Miltiades’ tribunal went also to Arles. There was a 
bishop of Ostia at both places but his name is different on the two occasions. 
The first may have died in the interval. 

52 The language of the council’s letter appears to imply this, Thus, from 
the outset, it became understood that a Roman bishop sent deputies to general 
councils held elsewhere but did not himself leave Rome. Whoever desired his 


presence must come to him. Italian synods under the presidency of the Roman 
See met always, as a matter of course, at the capital and continued to do so. 


466 THE SEE OF PETER 


proper date should be sent out beforehand to all, “ according to 
custom,” from the Roman See. It agreed that the African 
church, in return, no doubt, for the support it was receiving 
against the Donatists, should at last abandon its custom of re- 
baptizing converts from heresy and should admit whoever had 
already been baptized in the name of the Trinity with the simple 
laying on of hands, as the Romans did.** It also expressed the 
wish that bishops from the provinces, who visited Rome, might 
be assigned to city churches in which they might offer their 
eucharistic sacrifices. Finally, after drawing up these and 
other articles, the council enclosed them all in a profoundly re- 
spectful, almost apologetic letter to Silvester, signifying its regret 
that he had been unable to join and assist it in passing a severe 
verdict upon the schismatics and committing to him, as “the 
holder of the greater dioceses,” the responsibility of communicat- 
ing its conclusions to the remainder of the Church. The Western 
episcopate knew where its leadership lay. 

The further vicissitudes of the Donatists do not much concern 
us. Silvester, being human, derived, perhaps, some little consola- 
tion from the fact that they spurned the sentence of the Council 
of Arles as vehemently as they had the sentence of Miltiades and 
his associates. They appealed once more to Constantine, repeat- 
ing their former asseverations, that they could not recognize as 
bishop a man who had been consecrated by “ traditores.” After 
interviews with both Caecilian and Donatus at Milan, the 
emperor himself decided in favor of Caecilian. ‘Then, as the 


Donatists, uniting with the Novatianists and other heretical and 


revolutionary parties, persisted in agitation up and down the 
African countryside and steadily increased in numbers, he gave 
orders to the provincial authorities to eject them forcibly from 
their churches and even threatened them, as rebels, with exile and 
confiscation of property.®> But the movement had now taken on 


53 The variation as to the date of Easter was, of course, an old cause for 
dissension. Supra, pp. 246, 279. 

54 This resolution meant, it will be remembered, the surrender of a local 
practice that went back to the time of Cyprian and earlier. Supra, pp. 402, 403, 
410. The Asiatic church had, apparently, already given in. Supra, p. 411, n. 228. 

55 A number of interesting documents, reports of government investigations, 
testimonies of witnesses, imperial rescripts, etc., are published in the appendix to 
Optatus’ work on the Donatists, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 
Vol. XXVI, pp. 185 sqq. 


oe SO ee) Se Cae ee Me ee Sa Na ene 


—— tien hh 


we ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 467 


a social as well as a religious character and was not to be sup- 
pressed. In 321, Constantine concluded that since no instru- 
mentality that he could devise was capable of restoring peace, 
he would ‘best leave the church in Africa to fend for itself. Be- 
tween 340 and 348, his son Constans again endeavored in vain 
to restore the country to orthodoxy.*® The Donatists held their 
own until the pagan Vandals in 428 made havoc of all Christians 
together. 

In 323, Constantine’s victory over Licinius and his assump- 
tion of rulership in the eastern half of the Empire brought him 
face to face with a second and still more disheartening rent in 
the unity of his Christian subjects, the Arian controversy at 
Alexandria. Arius, a priest of that city, gentle and ascetic in 
mien, had during his youth studied in the school of one Lucian 
at Antioch. Lucian’s theology had felt the influence of the ideas 
of Paul of Samosata°*’ and of others like him and put heavy 
emphasis upon the humanity of the redeeming Christ. Later, in 
his church at Alexandria, Arius had preached his own somewhat 
modified theory of the Godhead, namely, one eternal and supreme 
Father, who had created first of all creatures his Son and Word 
to become the Creator and Savior of mankind. The Father alone 
was absolute and everlasting God. The Son, who had come to 
earth in the flesh, was of another and inferior essence or sub- 
stance, though divine above men with the divinity of the in- 
dwelling Word.*® In course of time, Alexander, bishop of the 
city, had begun discussing in meetings of his clergy the peculiari- 
ties of Arius’ teaching and had shown their incompatibility with 
catholic doctrine. He had then urged and finally commanded 
Arius and his friends to change their mode of speech and they 
had refused. A synod of Egyptian bishops under Alexander’s 
presidency had accordingly met and deposed Arius and five other 
priests and six deacons of Alexandria, together with two bishops 
from the vicinity who had adopted similar views. Arius and his 

56 Vide J. on Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 322-325. 

57 Supra, pp. 432, 437. The Nestorian heresy of the fifth century, which was 
Pence as underestimating Christ’s divinity, centred from the first at 


58 For a statement by Arius of his own belief see J. C. Ayer, op. cit., pp. 
302-303. 


468 THE SEE OF PETER 


band had left Egypt, even as Origen had done under somewhat 
comparable circumstances a century before,’® and had settled 
for a while in Caesarea. There our friend, the historian Eusebius, 
bishop of the city, had received them warmly and other bishops 
in Syria had shown their sympathy. A second Eusebius, bishop 
of Nicomedia, close to the imperial court, who had also studied 
in his youth at Antioch, had grown interested in the affair and 
had started a concerted movement among the bishops of the 
Orient to prevail upon their colleague at Alexandria to recon- 
sider his action and reinstate Arius. Alexander, meanwhile, had 
sent letters justifying his course and exposing the depth of Arius’ 
heresy to Silvester of Rome,*° the bishop of Antioch and other 
important prelates in the East. What response he had received 
we do not hear. 

Arius and his company, however, having obtained the endorse- 
ment of a considerable number of the bishops of Asia and sure 
of some support within the church at Alexandria, now ventured 
to return home and to resume their religious vocations. The 
result was, of course, a strained situation and ceaseless friction 
in the streets and the churches of the city. The report of it 
dampened Constantine’s elation over his new conquests. He 
had hoped that helpful influences from Egypt might emanate 
westward to heal the miserable discord in Africa and here was 
Egypt itself in need of healing! And all over such unnecessary 
folly! As a soldier and a governor, Constantine could in part 
appreciate the Donatists’ scruples against officers who had once 
betrayed their trust to the enemy but nothing in his career 
qualified him to grasp the finer, theological distinctions that 
underlay the Arian dispute. He sent his valued Hosius of 
Cordova to Alexandria, with a letter addressed to both Alexander 
and Arius together,*t in which he solemnly protested against 
the rash discussion in public meetings of topics “ suggested by 
a combative spirit,” fostered “by misused leisure,” which 
ought never to be approached but “ in the seclusion of our own 


59 Supra, pp. 89, 312. 

60 A reference to this letter is contained in one written long afterward by 
Pope Liberius. Infra, p. 562. 

61 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, II, 63-73. 


a a? 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 469 


thoughts.” Should brothers quarrel over such “ trifling and silly 
verbal differences,” “‘ points so petty and absolutely unessential,”’ 
as to which no man can ever reach certainty? The emperor, in 
his earnestness, condescended almost to entreaty. 

The quarrel, however, had by this time spread beyond Alex- 
andria and rival bishops were heading hostile churches in one 
Egyptian town after another. Hosius returned to Nicomedia with 
serious accounts of the situation and Constantine decided on one 
strenuous effort to avert the threatening schism. He would sum- 
mon another council, a council of East and West together, rep- 
resentative of the Church of the whole, consolidated Empire, the 
greatest council that had ever met. There was still no uniform 
Easter date accepted by all the East. As in the days of Victor, 
the Asiatics fixed their Easter by the Jewish Passover, while the 
Egyptians made their own calculations for the Sunday after 
the first full moon of the spring equinox.®* In consequence, the 
Easters of Asia and of Egypt might fall a lunar month apart. 
The divergency had long been regarded with indifference but 
now, for some unknown reason, it was arousing comment and 
acrimony. ‘The Council of Arles had, indeed, ruled that all 
churches must hereafter take the date from Rome but its rulings 
had no effect upon the East. Constantine resolved that his 
greater council should settle that matter also, as well as the 
foolish business of Arius. 

The Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of the 
Church, marked, as everyone knows, an epoch in the development 
of ecclesiastical institutions. Provincial synods had, of course, 
been held in plenty, especially during the previous third century. 
Adjacent provinces had frequently sent representatives to larger 
synods, convened at one of the leading metropolitan sees. Bishops 
from Syria and Eastern Asia Minor had met at Antioch, from 
Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis at Alexandria, from Africa, 
Numidia and Mauretania at Carthage. But until Constantine 
brought the whole West together at Arles, these groups of prov- 
inces had not combined. At Nicaea, for the first time, bishops 
came from Persia, the Caucasus, the Asiatic and the Egyptian 


62 Supra, pp. 279, 285. 


470 THE SEE OF PETER © 


provinces, Pannonia, Carthage, Spain and Gaul, to deliberate in 
one body for the common welfare. The Church of the Empire 
was personified by the throng who streamed in from all quarters 
of the compass to the little town on the coast of Marmora. Most 
Catholic writers, looking back upon this event, have felt positive 
that no such assembly could have taken place without the insti- 
gation or codperation of Silvester.** Yet all such contemporary 
evidence as we have concurs in making Constantine alone the 
author and promoter of the huge enterprise, even as he had been 
of the Council of Arles. Eusebius gives him the sole credit, as 
do the letters issued by the council itself, and he himself, both 
then and afterwards, spoke of it as the synod which he had 
summoned. He had hoped that “a great number ” of bishops 
at Arles might remedy the difficulties stirred up by the Donatists 


but they had been too stubborn. He now tried the same method 


on a large scale, in a spot where the influence of no one see would 
be likely to preponderate, trusting that with firm and dexterous 
management the new dissidents might be induced to submit to 
the will of this imposing multitude of the brethren. 

As to who presided over the sessions of the council our reports 
are too vague and meager to be decisive. Eusebius, the only 
eyewitness to leave us any description, tells us that “ the bishop 
of the imperial city failed to attend because of his advanced age 
but that his priests were there and filled his place.” ** So we 
infer that Silvester again chose to be represented by envoys. 
The first meeting was graced by the emperor in a purple robe, 


63 See, for instance, the Breviarium, quoted supra, p. 463, n. 45, and the 
modern Catholic authors, listed infra, p. 477. - 

64 Vita Constantini, III, 7. There has been some attempt to argue that by 
the term “imperial city ” Eusebius here means Constantinople rather than Rome. 
He uses, however, the same phrase in passages where there can be no doubt as to 
his meaning, e.g., when giving the place of Helena’s burial, III, 47 (supra, p. 449), 
and when referring to an act of the Roman Senate, IV, 69. His usual form of 
allusion to Constantinople is “the city that bore his [Constantine’s] name”; 
III, 48; IV, 46, 58, 66, 70. He says once that Constantine gave annual donations 
“to the Roman inhabitants of his imperial city.” In connection with Constantine’s 
death, he says that the Roman people and Senate wanted his body brought to 
“the imperial city” but that it was interred in “ the city that bears his name.” 
IV, 69-70. The historian Sozomen, writing early in the following century, is more 
specific. ‘ Julius [an obvious error for Silvester], bishop of Rome, failed to at- 
tend on account of his advanced age, but Vito and Vincent, priests of the same 
church, were present in his stead.” Sozomen, Historia Ecclestastica, I, 17. The 
historian Socrates merely repeats the phraseology of Eusebius. Socrates, Historia 
Ecclesiastica, 1, 8. 


a e ei . / 
ee ae tT a a ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 471 


who took his seat at the head of the hall. The bishop who stood 
next upon his right hand made an opening address of thanks and 
congratulation, to which Constantine replied with a speech on 
the eminent desirability of peace. “As soon,” Eusebius says, 
“as he had spoken these words in the Roman tongue, which 
some one else interpreted, he delivered the discussion to those 
who presided over the council.” ** Eusebius never names the 
man who presided. The fifth century historian Theodoret be- 
lieves that it was Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, and probabilities 
seem to favor his suggestion.*° Antioch and Alexandria were the 
most venerated sees of the East and the bishop of Alexandria, 
being himself involved in the case under trial, could hardly 
preside over the assembly that was to try it. 

But although the bishop of Rome had no direct share in the 
conduct of the great council, the authority of Rome was not for 
that reason entirely absent. The statement of catholic belief 
in the essential equality of the Father and the Son, drawn up 
after fierce debate and signed by all but six of the bishops present 
under pain of the imperial displeasure, was so worded as to ex- 
clude from communion henceforth any one who would question 
the perfect divinity of Christ. Alexander of Alexandria, his 
young deacon and spokesman, Athanasius, Eustathius of Antioch 
and Hosius of Cordova, the most influential men present, were 
determined to leave no loophole for future outcroppings of Adop- 
tionism, Arianism or any kindred heresy. Their search for some 
conclusive and unequivocal term to express the full participation 
of the Son in the Father’s Godhead ended in their acceptance 
of a word proposed by Constantine, prompted apparently by 
Hosius, who had himself undoubtedly been reared on Roman 
doctrine. This word was the famous “ homoousios,” consubstan- 


65 Vita Constantini, III, 11-13. Constantine used Latin for his letters and 
decrees. 

66 Historia Ecclesiastica, I, 6. H. Leclercq, in his notes to C. J. Hefele, 
Histoire des Conciles, Vol. I, Pt. I, p. 425 and n. 2, and L. Rivington, The Primi- 
tive Church and the See of Peter, pp. 161-166, attempt to make out that Hosius 
of Cordova presided as Silvester’s representative. Eusebius, however, mentions 
him as “one who took his seat among the multitude.” Vita Constantini, III, 7. 
Pope Julius, sixteen years later, cites the testimony of “our priests who attended 
the Nicene Synod” but says nothing of Hosius. Athanasius, Apologia contra 
Arianos, 32. Gelasius of Cyzicus, who toward the end of the fifth century com- 
piled a history of the council, is the first to hazard the idea. 


472 THE SEE OF PETER 


tial, one or equal in substance or essence, that is, in no way 
inferior or different.*° When many eastern bishops, not only the 
Arians but others as well, demurred or vigorously objected to 
the adoption of an epithet not found in the Scriptures, they were 
referred to Origen and to another noted Alexandrian scholar who 
had used it, but most especially to “the bishops of old times 
. . . both he of the great city of Rome and he of our own city 
[ Alexandria], who condemned those who taught that the Son is 
a creature and not of one substance with the Father.” * In the 
East, indeed, the word ‘‘ homoousios ” had never come into cir- 
culation and had been actually disapproved by the synod at 
Antioch in the days of Paul of Samosata. It struck discordantly 
now on many eastern ears and savored to them clearly of Sabel- 
lianism.°? Was no distinction then to be drawn between the 
Father and the Son? In the less critical West, terms equivalent 
in purport had been employed with entire satisfaction ever since 
the times of Tertullian and Callistus and the word ‘‘ homoousios ” 
itself or its Latin substitute, ‘‘ consubstantialis,” had been of- 
ficially endorsed by Bishop Dionysius and his Roman synod in 
or about 265. No wonder that the creed which contained it met 
with instant and staunch recognition and approval at Rome and 
proved but a starting point for worse troubles in the East. 

In the matter of the Easter date, the council attempted a 
compromise between Rome and Alexandria. The Asiatic bishops | 
were first persuaded to abandon altogether their ancient habit of 
fixing Easter by the Jewish Passover and to agree to follow hence- 
forth the Alexandrian rule of computation by the vernal equinox. 
In principle, the Alexandrian method was the same as the Roman 
but it was based upon a slightly different and more accurate set 
of astronomical calculations as to the moment when the equinox 
occurred. It used a nineteen-year instead of the Roman sixteen- 
year cycle. In consequence, the Roman and the Alexandrian 


67 Vide Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 42, and Socrates, Historia Ecclesi- 
astica, I, 8, 41. A good translation of the creed of Nicaea is in J. C. Ayer, Source 
Book for Ancient Church History, p. 306. 

68 Athanasius, quoted by Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, 1, 7. The allusion 
is to the two Dionysii. Supra, pp. 430-431, 435. 

69 For the Sabellians, who saw in the Son a phase or aspect of the eternal 
Father, vide supra, p. 300. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 473 


Easters, although often falling together, came occasionally a 
month apart. The council voted to retain the Alexandrian cycle 
but endeavored to propitiate the Romans by decreeing that the 
Alexandrian see “ should every year inform the Roman by letter 

. . of the day when Easter should be celebrated” and that 
“apostolic authority ” should then notify the remainder of the 
Church.” The Romans, however, tenacious as ever of their own 
customs, did not for a long time consent to accept this arrange- 
ment. ‘They naturally preferred the legislation of Arles on this 
subject to that of Nicaea and continued to set the date for the 
West by their own astronomical tables as before. Eighteen years 
later, the Council of Sardica tried again in vain to bring about 
cooperation between Rome and Alexandria. Between 444 and 
455, Pope Leo I chose more than once of his own accord to 
observe the Alexandrian date rather than the Roman. But the 
point was not finally and positively conceded until Dionysius 
Exiguus, in 525, compiled his Paschal lists for the use of the 
Roman See on the foundation, as he frankly said, of the nine- 
teen-year cycle of Alexandria, approved by the Fathers at 
Nicaea.” 

The extant canons of Nicaea deal for the most part with 
questions of discipline and procedure arising from the recent 
government persecutions or from the survival of a few persistent 
heresies. Several of these canons were intended to strengthen 
the control of metropolitans over their provincial bishops and to 
ensure unanimity between bishops in carrying out sentences of 
excommunication. The sixth reaffirmed in particular the juris- 
diction, by old custom, of the bishop of Alexandria over the 
churches of Egypt, Libya and the Pentapolis, on the ground that 


70 The Council of Nicaea did not embody its Easter decisions in a canon, at 
least not in any that has survived. The quotation above is from the Prologus 
Paschalis of Cyril of Alexandria, composed in the early fifth century. Cited by 
C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, Vol. I, Pt. I, p. 465. Pope Leo I described this 
resolution of the council in similar terms in his Epistolae, CXXI. (J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Latina, Vol. LIV, p. 1055.) Constantine’s general letter, “To the 
churches,” which he sent out at the conclusion of the deliberations at Nicaea, 
joyfully announcing the solution of all difficulties, said simply that all churches, 
East and West, Roman, African, Egyptian, Asiatic, etc., were now keeping the 
same Easter. Eusebius, Vita Constantini, III, 19.: The letter of the council to 
the churches of Egypt is slightly more specific. Infra, p. 486. 

71 Letter to Petronius, bishop of Bologna, J. P. Migne, op. cit., Vol. LXVII, 
pp. 21-22, 


474 THE SEE OF PETER 


the bishop of Rome possessed similar metropolitan authority. It 
added the proviso that the church of Antioch should also retain 
its customary position.” Canon VII ordained that the bishop 
of Jerusalem should have only such special honor as could be 
rendered him without prejudice to Antioch. The particular pur- 
pose of this legislation was, of course, to support the Alexandrian 
bishop in his efforts to root out Arianism in Egypt and Libya. 
It amounted to putting Rome as a metropolitan diocese in a class 
with the two most eminent eastern metropolitans, although it 
did not preclude further distinctions of rank within that class. 
An assemblage where the East was in so large a majority could 
scarcely at that time have done more. 

Before disbanding, the council, as also the emperor, sent out 
jubilant letters to declare the good tidings of peace. We quote 


extracts from the two that went to the church of Alexandria, 


where the Arian contingent was still fomenting opposition, al- 


though Constantine had already taken the precaution to banish — 


their leader, Arius.”* In his letter, Constantine expressed his 
firm assurance that ‘‘ that which had commended itself to three 
hundred bishops could be no other than the doctrine of God.” 
But once back at home, out from under the compulsion of the 
imperial eye, the three hundred bishops felt freer to voice their 
genuine opinion of the formula they had just signed. Many who 
aimed to be orthodox could not reconcile themselves to the 
strange word, “‘homoousios.” Conflicts began here and there 
over problems of interpretation and a reaction gradually set in. 
No one dared to dispute openly the authority of the great council, 
but tacitly and surreptitiously its influence was undermined and 
its leaders overthrown on one pretext or another. First, Eusta- 
thius of Antioch was deposed by a synod of Asiatic bishops on 
a charge of Sabellianism and Constantine was induced to exile 
him, as a heretic, to Illyricum. His successor was avowedly hos- 


72 For later emendations and interpretations of this famous canon, vide infra, 
p. 485, n. 92. 

73 Beside banishing the Arians, Constantine issued an edict in his own name 
ordering the burning of all Arian literature, on penalty of death. Socrates, His- 
toria Ecclesiastica, I, 9, 30. In this case, he wasted no time on halfway measures, 
as he may have felt that he had done with the Donatists. He also devoted much 
energy, after the dissolution of the council, to hearing appeals and attempting to 
reconcile individual disputants, Eusebius, Vita Constantini, III, 23. 


a i 3 =~ 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 47s 


tile to the Nicene platform. Then, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who 
had been temporarily banished along with Arius for resistance 
to the orthodox viewpoint, was allowed to return and gained im- 
perceptibly considerable ascendency over the emperor, who was 
too obtuse a theologian to notice how he was being manipulated. 
In 328, Alexander of Alexandria died and Athanasius was elected 
by popular acclaim to fill his place but he soon found himself 
hampered at every turn by the Arians and accused by his enemies 
to Constantine on charges varying from the smashing of a priest’s 
chalice in Mareotis to the murder of an irregular bishop and the 
embezzlement of the public grain supply. The atmosphere grew 
thick with suspicion and intrigue. 

At length, in 332 or 333, Constantine aroused himself for one 
more effort to allay the smouldering disquiet that he perceived 
about him. He called Arius, as the original ringleader, from the 
exile to which he and his closest adherents had been condemned 
after Nicaea and, in a personal interview, procured from him a 
vague and indefinite profession of faith, not necessarily incon- 
sistent with the Nicene creed.’* Constantine himself was fully 
satisfied with this avowal and, as the next step to a general 
appeasement, required Athanasius, as Alexander’s successor, to 
restore Arius to the catholic communion in Alexandria and thus 
to heal the breach where it had arisen. On Athanasius’ unquali- 
fied refusal, the emperor reverted once more to his favorite idea 
of a council, to judge this time the new situation that had sprung 
up between the Arians and the Alexandrian bishop. In 335, 
this council met at Tyre. It was in the hands of Athanasius’ 
enemies, Arians, semi-Arians and all who for any cause disliked 
the formula of Nicaea, of which he was now the foremost eastern 
champion. No western bishop was invited. Athanasius was 
tried, ostensibly not so much for his doctrine as for a list of 
criminal enormities of which he was declared to have been guilty. 
Sensational evidence was hastily trumped up against him and he 
was sentenced to deposition from office and banishment from 
Egypt. The synod then moved its sittings to Jerusalem, where its 
members attended the dedication ceremonies of the church of the 


74 It is given in J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 
307-308. 


476 THE SEE OF PETER 


Holy Sepulchre, and finally voted to readmit Arius and his fol- 
lowers to full communion. Athanasius fruitlessly tried to obtain 
a fair audience with the emperor. His accusers poisoned Con- 
stantine’s ear. The whole blame for the prolongation of trouble 
and discord was put upon him and the emperor was persuaded 
to agree to his removal and imprisonment at Trier, on the distant 
borders of Gaul.” 

In that same year, Silvester died at Rome. His seat in Italy 
had remained apparently tranquil, undisturbed by doctrinal con- 
troversy at home or by the change of events in the East. So far 
as we can discover, after the return of his priests from Nicaea, 
he had not intervened in anything that went on beyond Italy. 
Nor do we hear of any special religious activity, beside church- 
building, at Rome.”® It is not hard to understand how Eusebius, 


recalling Constantine’s tireless interest in ecclesiastical affairs’ 


everywhere, might say with enthusiasm: ‘‘ He [the emperor] ex- 
ercised a special care over God’s Church and . . . like a general 
bishop, appointed by God, convoked councils of his ministers.” 
“Tt was not without reason that he once, while entertaining a 
company of bishops, let fall the remark that he too was a bishop, 
speaking to them in my hearing as follows: ‘ You are bishops, 
whose jurisdiction lies within the Church. I also am a bishop, 
ordained by God to oversee the external business of the 
Church.’” ™ Certainly, if anyone performed the function of a 
“bishop of the bishops ” during those twenty years, it was mon- 
arch rather than Roman pontiff. But neither Eusebius nor Sil- 
vester nor any of their colleagues, who dubiously or gratefully 
watched the widening scope of secular interference in religious 
affairs, such as the calling of episcopal councils, the trial of ec- 


clesiastical disputes, the imposition of creeds and the punishment 
of nonconformists, showed any sign that we can now detect of 
realizing the portentous nature of the control that the emperor 


75 It seems superfluous to furnish references for these events. Authorities 
will be found conveniently indicated in the footnotes to L. Duchesne’s Early 
History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, Chap. V. Constantine justified his 
banishment of Athanasius on the ground that so numerous a gathering of wise and 
enlightened bishops as the Council of Tyre could not have condemned an innocent 
man. Letter to Anthony. 

76 Silvester built a basilica on the site of the modern San Martino ai Monti. 

17 Vita Constantini, 1, 44; IV, 24. 


Se. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 477 


had in truth set over the Christian Church or the fact that in ex- 
change for his paternal care and benevolence it had forfeited its 
independence. Spiritually, at least, it had been freer under the 
pagans. 


On Constantine and the Donatists see references, supra, p. 454. For 
the Arians and the Council of Nicaea see C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles 
(8 vols., Paris, 1907-1921), Vol. I, Pt. I, pp. 335 sqqg.; Pt. II, pp. 1193 sqq.; 
J. F. Turmel, Constantine et la Papauté in Revue Catholique des Eglises 
(Paris, 1906), Vol. III, pp. 212-216; W. Bright, The Roman See in 
the Early Church (London, 1896), pp. 75 sqq.; F. Loofs, Arianismus in 
J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopddie fir protestantische Theologie 
und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. II; F. Loofs, Dogmenge- 
schichte (Marburg, 1899), sect. 32; H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism 
(2nd ed., Cambridge, 1900); A. Harnack, History of Dogma (trans. by N. 
Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 1897-1901), Vol. IV, chap. I; L. Duchesne, Early 
History of the Christian Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 
vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. II, chaps. III-V; H. Le Bachelet, Sé. 
Athanase in A. Vacant and E. Mangeneot, Dictionnaire de Théologie Ca- 
tholique (7 vols., Paris, 1909-1922), Vol. I; J. C. Ayer, Source Book for 
Ancient Church History (New York, 1913), pp. 287-309, 360-362; B. J. 
Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols., Oxford, 1922-1924), Vol. 
II, chaps. II and III. 


1. THE DONATISTS AND THE COUNCIL OF ARLES 


Constantine, Letter to Chrestus of Syracuse, quoted by 
Eusebius, Historia Ecclestastica, X, 5, 21-24. Text. 
Eusebius Werke (Die griechischen christlichen Schrift- 
steller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), II’, 888-890. 


Constantine Augustus to Chrestus, bishop of the people 
of Syracuse. 

Whereas certain persons some time ago began a wicked 
and perverse dispute over holy religion and heavenly power 
and the catholic doctrine and I wished to put an end to 
this strife among them, I gave command that several bishops 
should be sent from Gaul and that the belligerent parties, 
who were stubbornly and incessantly wrangling with one 


478 THE SEE OF PETER 


another, should be summoned from Africa and that the 
bishop of Rome should be present, so that, when all were 
met together, the question that seemed to be at the bottom 
of the disturbance might be examined and decided with 
every care. But since it now appears that some of these 
persons, oblivious both of their own salvation and of the 
reverence due to most holy doctrine, are not even yet re- 
fraining from private hostilities and are refusing to submit 
to the judgment that was then delivered and are insisting 
that the men who pronounced those opinions and decisions 
were far too few in number and too hasty and precipitate 
in declaring sentence before they had inquired into all the 
points which needed thorough investigation, therefore it is 
still the case that men who ought to be living in brotherly 
and harmonious accord are disgracefully, even outrageously, 
divided among themselves and are furnishing ground for 
derision to people whose souls are strangers to this most 
holy religion. Accordingly, I consider it essential to arrange 
that this dissension, which should have been ended by volun- 
tary understanding when once the judgment had been pro- 
nounced, should now, if possible, be brought to a close by 
the participation of a large number. 

Inasmuch, then, as we have ordered a great company 
of bishops from many different places to assemble in the 
city of Arles by the first of August, we have thought fit to 
write to you also, to bid you procure from the illustrious 
Latronianus, corrector * of Sicily, a public carriage and to 
bring with you two other clergy, of the second order,” 
whomever you yourself may choose, as well as three servants 
to attend you on the way, and to reach the place aforesaid 
by the appointed day; .. . 


78 A title meaning, at first, a land bailiff, at this later time, a provincial 
governor. 

79 The priests were sometimes, at this period, called “clergy of the second 
order,” in contrast with “clergy of the first order,” i.e., the bishops. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 479 


Constantine, Epistola ad Aelafium. Text. Sylloge Opta- 
tiana, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 
XXVI, 204-206. 


Constantine Augustus to Aelafius.*° 

[An account of his previous effort to put a stop to the 
quarrel in Africa by summoning Caecilian and representa- 
tives of both parties to be tried in Rome.| And they [the 
judges| reported for my information, with the records which 
they kept, all that took place before them, affirming besides 
that their sentence was delivered in accordance with jus- 
tice and adding that the men who had expected to injure 
Caecilian were so unruly during the proceedings that they 
were forbidding them to return to Africa after the close of the 
trial. From all of which I hoped, according to my estimate 
of the probable situation, that the rebellions and disputes 
which these men had so suddenly stirred up would soon 
be brought to a proper termination. But when I read the 
report which your excellency sent to Nicasius and the others 
about the disturbances, I perceived plainly that these people 
are unwilling to keep before their eyes either any considera- 
tion of their own salvation or, what is more important, the 
reverence due to Almighty God, and are persisting in conduct 
which not only brings down shame and obloquy upon them- 
selves but which also gives ground for contempt to such 
persons as we know are averse to our most holy religion. 
You must understand also that some of these same men 
have come to me and asserted that this Caecilian is not 
worthy to perform an act of worship in our most holy 
religion. And when I replied to them that they were con- 
tinuing a useless agitation, because the affair had been 
settled in the city of Rome by competent and highly ap- 
proved bishops, they protested obstinately and tenaciously 
that the whole case had not been heard there but that these 


80 Vicar of Africa. 


480 THE SEE OF PETER 


bishops had, instead, shut themselves up in one spot and 
had passed the verdict which they thought expedient. . . . 
[Instructions to Aelafius to send Caecilian and bishops of 
his own and the opposite party from different provinces by 
public post via Spain to Arles. | 


Council of Arles, Synodical Letter to Silvester, bishop of 
Rome. Text. Sylloge Optatiana, Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, XXVI, 206-208. 


Marinus, Acratius, Natalis, . . .°* Victor and Epictetus 
to our most dearly beloved pope Silvester, greeting forever 
in the Lord. 

Bound together by the common links of love and by 
the chain of the unity of our mother, the catholic Church, 
and brought to the city of Arles by the will of our devout 
emperor, we salute you hence with due reverence, most 
glorious pope. We have borne with the grave and perilous 
breach of our law and tradition and with the men of unruly 
disposition, whom the manifest will of our God and the 
tradition and ordinance of truth have so completely re- 
pudiated that there is no power of speech left in them 
and no capacity to accuse and to furnish adequate proof. 
So, by the judgment of God and of Mother Church, who 
knows and approves her own, they have been condemned ~ 
and expelled. Would, O dearly beloved brother, that you 
had thought it wise to attend this great assemblage! We 
firmly believe that a more severe verdict would then have 
been passed against them and if you had been judging here 
with us, we should all have rejoiced with deeper joy. But 
inasmuch as you were not able to leave the place where the 
apostles to this day have their seats and where their blood 


81 Thirty-three bishops are named as the senders of this letter, including 
Marinus, Reticius and Maternus, the three from Gaul who had assisted in the 
trial at Rome. Marinus of Arles, whose name stands first in this and the following 
document, probably presided. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 481 


without ceasing witnesses to the glory of God, we did, not- 
withstanding, think it best, dearest brother, not only to deal 
with those questions which we were summoned here to de- 
cide but also to hold conferences with one another, because 
the provinces from which we have come are various and 
divergencies arise, which we think should be regulated. We 
accordingly resolved, in the sight of the Holy Spirit and his 
angels, to proceed during this present peace to judgment 
with regard to those problems which have been disturbing 
individuals everywhere. And we resolved to write first of 
all to you, who hold the greater dioceses,” that through 
you preferably our resolutions should be made known to 
everyone. And what our conclusions were we have appended 
to this our poor letter. 

In the first place, for the sake of our own lives and 
salvation, we deemed it necessary to decide that the season 
of him who died and rose again alone for many should be 
observed by us all with so religious a mind that no divisions 
or controversies could arise from the deep worship of our 
devotion. So we decreed that the Lord’s Easter should 
be celebrated by the whole world on the same day... . 
[Summary of other legislation. | 

Then, being weary, he [the emperor] commanded every 
man to return to his see. Amen. 


Council of Arles, Canons, I, VIII, XIII, XIX. Text. 
C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, I. Pt. 1, 280 sqq. 


Marinus and the assembly of bishops gathered in the 
city of Arles to their most holy lord and brother, Silvester. 
What we in common council have decreed we report to 
82 The Latin is “ qui maiores dioceses tenes.” By the term “ dioceses” may 


be meant the suburbicarian districts subject to the vicar of Rome. Infra, p. 485, 
N02. 


482 THE SEE OF PETER 


your charity, so that everyone may know what ought to be 
observed in the future. 


Canon I 


In the first place, as regards the observance of the Lord’s 
Easter, it was resolved that we should observe it on the 
same day and at the same time throughout the world and 
that you should send out letters, according to custom, to 
everyone.” 


Canon VIII 


As for the Africans, because they follow their own law 
and give second baptism, it was resolved that if anyone 
should be converted from heresy to the Church he should 
be asked for his creed. And if it is clear that he has been 
already baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit, hands merely should be laid upon him, that he may 
receive the Holy Spirit. But if, when he is questioned, he 
does not acknowledge the Trinity, let him be baptized.™ 


Canon XIII 


It was resolved that persons who are said to have sur- 


rendered the Holy Scriptures or the sacred vessels or the 


names of their brethren, provided they are convicted by 
public records and not by unsupported rumors, should be 
deposed from the rank of clergy. If, however, these same 
persons have ordained others and the men ordained by them 
are worthy and fit to receive holy orders, there should be 
no prejudice against their ordination.” 


83 “Tuxta consuetudinem litteras ad omnes tu dirigas.” If this canon had 
been ratified at Nicaea, it would have established the a for which Victor 
contended at the end of the second century. Supra, pp. 275, 279. 

84 This marks the abandonment of the principle for et the African church 
under Cyprian struggled against the Roman Stephen. Supra, pp. 394, 402 ff., 419. 

85 This canon disposes of the Donatist complaints. 


Se a ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 483 


Canon XIX 


It was resolved that places for offering sacrifice should 
be assigned to the foreign bishops who are accustomed to 
visit the City.” 


Augustine, Epistolae, CV, 8. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, XXXIV, 600-601. 


Augustine, catholic bishop, to the Donatists. 


8 Hear this: your ancestors,” first of all, carried the 
case of Caecilian to the emperor Constantine. Ask us to 
prove it to you and if we fail to prove it, do with us what- 
ever youcan! ‘Then, because Constantine did not dare to 
judge the case of a bishop, he committed the examination 
and decision of it to other bishops. The trial took place 
in the city of Rome under the presidency of Melchiades, 
bishop of that church, in company with many colleagues. 
But after they had pronounced Caecilian innocent and given 
verdict against Donatus, who had precipitated the schism 
at Carthage, your people went a second time to the emperor 
and complained of the judgment of the bishops, by which 
they had been vanquished. For when could a wicked suitor 
praise the judges by whose judgment he was defeated? 
However, once more the kindly emperor appointed other 
bishops to be their judges at Arles, a city of Gaul. But 
from them your ancestors appealed to the emperor himself, 
until he himself investigated the case and declared Caecil- 
ian innocent and them scandalmongers.** But not even 


86 “ Urbem,” ze., Rome. This is the one request or suggestion proffered to 
Silvester. 

87 Augustine wrote this letter at the beginning of the fifth century. 

88 In another letter, XLIII, vii, 20, Augustine tells how Constantine ordered 
Caecilian and the Donatists to meet him at Rome (probably in 315, at the time 
of his second visit to the city). Caecilian, however, did not put in his appearance. 
Constantine was much irritated and threatened to go himself to Africa and teach 
them all “how the Divinity ought to be worshipped.” Letter of Constantine in 


484 THE SEE OF PETER 


after so many defeats did they keep quiet but they made 
themselves irksome to the emperor by their daily protests 
against Felix of Aptonga, by whom Caecilian had been or- 
dained, for they insisted that he was a “ traditor” © and 
for that reason Caecilian could not be a bishop, because he 
had been ordained by a “ traditor.”’ Then the case of Felix 
also was, by the emperor’s order, investigated by the pro- 
consul Aelianus and he too was proved to be innocent. 


2. THE ARIAN QUESTION AND THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 


Eusebius, Vita Constantini, III, 5, 6. Text. Eusebius 
Werke (Die griechischen christie Schriftsteller der 
ersten drei Jahrhunderte), I, 79. 


[Account of the Arian dissension in Egypt and of the 
long continued disagreement between different branches of 
the Church over the date of Easter, so that “‘ some were 
afflicting themselves with fasting and austerity, while others 
were spending the time in festive rejoicing.”| 5... . Of 
all upon earth Constantine appeared to be the only instru- 
ment of God for this good end [of general reconciliation]. 
When he perceived the facts I have described and saw that 
the letter which he had sent to the Alexandrians had pro- 
duced no effect, he then aroused the energy of his mind 
and declared that he must engage in this one more war 
against the invisible adversary who was harrying the Church. 

6. Thereupon, as if to bring the phalanx of God into the 
field against the enemy, he convoked a universal council 
and with respectful letters summoned the bishops to gather 
at once from all quarters.*’ Nor did the emperor merely 


Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XXVI, 211. He finally, however, 
commanded the litigants to follow him to Milan, where Caecilian presently joined 
them and the last trial was held. 

89 For the significance of this word vide supra, p. 450. 

90 In Eusebius’ report of Constantine’s speech at the opening of the council, 
he represents him as saying: “ With the earnest desire that a remedy for this evil 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 485 


issue a bare command but by his generosity he contributed 
much to its accomplishment. He allowed some bishops the 
use of the public post and others an ample supply of horses 
for transportation. He selected also a propitious city for 
the council, Nicaea, named for victory,” in Bithynia. Thus, 
as the injunction sped everywhere, all with the utmost 
alacrity hastened thither. 


Council of Nicaea, Canons VI and VII. Text. C. J. Hefele, 
Histoire des Conciles, I, Pt. I, 552-553, 569. 


Canon VI 


Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and the Pen- 
tapolis prevail, that the bishop of Alexandria shall have 
jurisdiction in all these provinces, since the like is customary 
for the bishop of Rome also. Similarly in Antioch and the 
other provinces let the churches retain their privileges.” 


[internal strife] also might be found through my aid, I immediately sent to re- 
quire your presence.” Vita Constantine, III, 12. See, in addition, the letter of the 
council, infra, p. 487. The historian Socrates, writing at the opening of the next 
century, gives the whole credit for the assembly to “ the emperor, who saw that 
the church was kept in disturbance . . . [and] convened an ecumenical council, 
summoning by letter the bishops from everywhere.” Socrates, Historia Ecclesi- 
astica, I, 8. Rufinus, however, says about the same time that Constantine col- 
lected the council at the advice of the clergy, “ ex sacerdotum sententia.”’ Rufinus, 
Historia. Ecclesiastica, X, 1. The Liber Pontificalis of the sixth or seventh century 
states that the council was convoked “ with the approval of Silvester.” L. R. 
Loomis, The Book of the Popes, 44. At the Council of Constantinople, in 682, 
it was declared that Constantine and Silvester assembled the Council of Nicaea, 
G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Ampblissima Collectio (50 vols., 
Venice, Florence, Paris, 1759-1924), Vol. XI, p. 662. 

91 The Greek word vixn, niké, means victory. 

82 This translation is taken from the earliest extant Greek text. H. Leclercq 
has compared all the surviving early versions of this canon, Greek, Latin, Arabic, 
Syriac and Coptic, and gives the following rendering of the version which he be- 
lieves to have been prevalent in Egypt: “ Let the ancient laws be observed, espe- 
cially such as concern Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, that the bishop of Alexandria 
shall have jurisdiction over all these provinces, since it is a rule established by the 
bishops of Rome (like that which deals with Antioch and the other provinces), 
that precedences should be observed in the church.” By this wording, the suprem- 
acy of the bishop of Alexandria over his colleagues in the surrounding provinces 
is not compared to that of the bishop of Rome but is sanctioned by the traditions 
of the Roman bishopric. H. Leclercq, notes to C. J. Hefele, op. cit. p. 553. 
Rufinus gives a Latin abridgment of the Greek, containing what he evidently took 
to be its gist. ‘Let the ancient custom prevail both at Alexandria and in the 


486 THE SEE OF PETER 


And this is to be generally understood, that if any man 
be made bishop without the approbation of his metropolitan, 
the great council has declared that he ought not to be a 
bishop.” If, moreover, two or three bishops from natural 
love of contradiction oppose the general vote of the rest, 
when that is reasonable and in harmony with the law of 
the Church, then let the will of the majority prevail. 


Canon VII 


Inasmuch as custom and ancient tradition have required 
that the bishop of Aelia ** should be treated with honor, 
let him, without prejudice, however, to the ete due = 
Be eet have the next position of honor.” 


Council of Nicaea, Synodical Letter to the Alexandrians, 
quoted by Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, 1, 9. Text. 
J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 77-84. 


The bishops assembled at Nicaea, composing the great 
and holy council, to the church of the Alexandrians, great 
and holy by the grace of God, and to our beloved brethren 


city of Rome, that the Alexandrian bishop shall have oversight over Egypt and 
the Roman over the suburban churches [suburbicariarum ecclesiarum].” Historia 
Ecclesiastica, X, 6. A similar version was current at Carthage. The term 
“suburban districts’? (suburbicariae regiones) was offiically applied, from Diocle- 
tian’s reign onward, to the provinces governed by the “ Vicarius Urbis,” namely, 
the ten which made up central Italy, southern Italy, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. 
An introductory clause was afterwards added to the canon in the West. “ The 
Roman church has always held the primacy.” In this form the Roman legates 
read the canon at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 but they were promptly 
corrected by the eastern members, who protested against the offensive and un- 
warranted interpolation. But in this enlarged form the canon was thenceforward 
preserved and cited at Rome and in this form it still appears in the Corpus Juris 
Canonici, Dist. LXV, c. 1. 

93 The rights of the three patriarchs being guaranteed, the rights of the ordi- 
nary metropolitan to confirm the election of bishops within his province are next 
protected. 

94 The name of the Roman city built upon the site of old Jerusalem. The 
gentile church which arose there was never regarded as possessing quite the same 
claim to reverence as that of the original apostolic church of the Jews. 

95 J.e., the bishop of Aelia or Roman Jerusalem is to rank aiter the bishop of 
Antioch. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 487 


throughout Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, greeting in the 
Lord. 

Whereas, by the grace of God and the summons of our 
most pious sovereign Constantine, who gathered us from 
divers cities and provinces, a great and holy council has 
been convened at Nicaea, it has appeared to us essential 
above all else to send a letter to you from the holy council, 
that you might know what matters have been taken into con- 
sideration and examined and what has been eventually re- 
solved and decreed. First of all, an inquiry was made into 
the sacrilege and wrongdoing of Arius, in the presence of 
the most pious emperor Constantine. ... [An exposition 
of the Arian heresy and the conclusions finally reached 
concerning it and its author. | 

We also announce to you the good news of our agreement 
as to the holy feast of Easter, that through your prayers 
it has been adjusted in this way, that all the brethren in the 
East who have hitherto kept the feast with the Jews will 
henceforth conform to the Romans and to us and to all 
who from ancient times have observed Easter with us... . 
| A prayer that peace may now be established. | 


Constantine, Letter to the church of Alexandria, quoted 
by Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, I, 9. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 84. 


Constantine Augustus to the catholic church of the 
Alexandrians, greeting, beloved brethren. 

. . . At the command of God, the splendor of truth has 
dissipated and overwhelmed those dissensions, schisms, 
tumults and, so to speak, fatal poisons of discord. Now 
we all worship by name the one God and believe that he is. 
But in order that this might come to pass, I assembled, 
by God’s direction, at the city of Nicaea a great number 
of bishops, in company with whom I myself also, who am 


488 THE SEE OF PETER 


but one of you and who rejoice exceedingly to be your 
fellowservant, undertook to investigate the truth. So all 
points which seemed by their ambiguity to furnish excuse 
for disputation we have discussed and clearly explained. . . . 
When, then, more than three hundred bishops, renowned for 
their wisdom and acumen, had confirmed one and the same 
faith, which according to the true and unerring law of God 
is the faith, it was discovered that Arius alone ** was de- 
ceived by the machination of the devil and was the dis- 
seminator of mischief by his impious opinions, first among 
you and later among others also. . . . Now that which has 
proved itself acceptable to the three hundred bishops is no 
other than the doctrine of God, for of a certainty the Holy 
Spirit, dwelling in the minds of so many great men, has en- 
lightened for them the divine will. Therefore, let no one 
vacillate or hesitate but let all return heartily to the way 
of perfect truth, so that when, as soon as possible, I arrive 
among you, I may offer fit thanks with you to the all-seeing 
God for having revealed the pure faith and restored to you 
the love for which you prayed. May God protect you, 
beloved brethren. 


JULIUS I 


(337-352) 

After the death of Silvester comes the short pontificate of — 
Marcus (336-337). He may have been prominent earlier as a 
priest and for that reason named by Constantine in his letter to 
Miltiades about the Donatists.°’ But about Marcus as bishop 
we know nothing whatever, except that he, like Silvester and like 
Julius also afterwards, left behind him a basilica that bore his 
name.*® With Julius, the successor of Marcus, however, the See 


96 Six bishops, beside Arius, refused to sign the creed of Nicaea and were 
condemned with him to exile. Eleven others signed reluctantly, after expressing 
their disapprobation. Rufinus, Historia Ecclesiastica, X, 5. 

97 Supra, Pp. 457. 

98 The basilica of Marcus stood on the foundation of the present church of 
San Marco, not far from the Piazza Venezia. Julius is said to have built two 
churches in the city, one on the site now occupied by the church of Santi Apostoli; 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 489 


of Rome resumes the prominence that it seems to have lacked 
for many years. Nor is there any apparent sign of weakened 
prestige or of diminished dignity. Julius steps without hesitation 
into the position of ecclesiastical authority on doctrine and disci- 
pline and of judge of appeals from the whole Church to which the 
Roman bishops of the third century had, with varying results, 
aspired. The West concedes it to him wholeheartedly, even 
though the western bishops at Sardica undertake to prescribe 
for him the machinery of his appellate courts. The orthodox 
bishops of the East, outraged by the injustice of their Arian 
countrymen, bring their cases to him with gratitude. Even the 
pro-Arian party entertains for a while the idea of a joint revision 
with him of the trials it has already held independently, until it 
falls back defiantly upon its right, as a branch of the codrdinate 
episcopate, to pass final sentence upon its own offenders and to 
have its sentences respected in the West. But at this crisis the 
secular, imperial power behind Julius intervenes and compels 
the East to submission. The eastern verdicts are nullified and 
the orthodox beneficiaries of Rome are reinstated in their original 
offices. The policy of Julius appears as a triumphant continua- 
tion of that of Stephen and Dionysius. 

Circumstances which seem to have prevented the immediate 
forerunners of Julius from making much of their claim to pre- 
dominance suddenly altered and recombined in such a way as to 
favor him. Three months after his ordination, Constantine, 
whose figure, as we have said, had so long engrossed the center of 
the world’s stage, died in Nicomedia, leaving three sons who 
proceeded to divide the Empire between them. Constans, the 
youngest, was allotted the middle territory, Italy, Africa and the 
Balkan peninsula as far as Thrace. Like his brothers, he had 
been educated as a Christian and, unlike his father, he had come 
under nothing but orthodox influence. Throughout his reign, he 
lent an attentive ear to the wishes and opinions of the one great 
bishop of his dominions, Julius of Rome. 


the other, which was called “the basilica of Julius,” was across the Tiber, on or 
near the spot covered by the hall of worship constructed by Callistus, more than a 
century earlier. Supra, p. 300. For Julius’ churches outside the walls, vide infra, 


Diets: 


490 THE SEE OF PETER 


At first, all three brothers agreed upon the advisability of a 
pacific and unifying policy in church affairs. Constantine II, 
who was master of Gaul, Spain and Britain, at once gave orders 
for the release of Athanasius from detention at Trier °° and sent 
word to the catholic church of Alexandria of the exile’s approach- 
ing return. A general edict soon afterwards went out for the 
liberation of all clergy in banishment everywhere. In some 
instances, however, the reappearance of these men, judicially 
deposed, for whom successors had been provided, caused new 
outbreaks of resentment and antagonism. At Alexandria, the 
announcement of the return of Athanasius proved the signal for 
a concerted movement of resistance on the part of his Arian 
enemies in the city. Arius himself was dead but his followers 
were no less determined to escape from the orthodox yoke. They 
now elected one Pistus as their bishop in place of Athanasius and 
made rapid efforts to secure his recognition by other bishops 
abroad. In particular, they wrote to Julius at Rome and sent a 
priest, Macarius, and two deacons, Hesychius and Martyrius, 
with the letter and other documents to show that Athanasius had 
been rightfully deposed by the Council of Tyre and could, there- 
fore, no longer be properly regarded as a bishop at all. 

Athanasius reached Alexandria in November, 337, and took 
prompt measures to cope with this new project to unseat him. 
He assembled a synod of Egyptian bishops, who acquitted him 
of all charges of misconduct, repudiated the verdict of the Coun- 
cil of Tyre and brought countercharges in their turn against the 
Arians of unscrupulous brutality in their labors to manufacture ~ 
evidence against Athanasius. A priest was dispatched to Rome 
with a synodical letter to this effect and other documents that 
exposed the crimes of which the Arians had been guilty. 
Macarius, their chief envoy at Rome, realizing perhaps that the 
Athanasian material rendered his own accusations worthless, did 
not wait to face it but slipped away from the city and went back 
to the East. The two deacons, Hesychius and Martyrius, whom 
he left behind, flustered and baffled, suggested in desperation that 
Julius hold his own trial of Athanasius and find out the truth for 


99 For the previous story of Athanasius vide supra, pp. 471, 475. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 491 


himself. Meanwhile, however, the pro-Arian Eusebius of Nico- 
media had lost no time in winning an influence over the young 
eastern emperor, Constantius. He had also arranged for his own 
transference from the see of Nicomedia to that of Constantinople 
and for the banishment of Paul, the orthodox bishop of the 
capital. He was now regarded as the head of the eastern oppo- 
sition to Athanasius and to the criterion of faith erected at 
Nicaea. In 338, he and his associates wrote to Julius, denouncing 
Athanasius in the blackest terms and politely inviting Julius to 
call another council of the interested parties and to judge the case 
again, if he liked. If the bishop of Rome could be induced to side 
against Athanasius, the latter and all others of his stamp in the 
East would be left isolated indeed. Julius accepted the invitation 
and in May or June of 339, sent out his letters of summons, not 
only to the Italian bishops who would compose the body of an 
ordinary Roman synod, but also to Athanasius at Alexandria, to 
Eusebius and to other prelates who had been connected with the 
doings at Tyre. For the first time on record, one bishop, single- 
handed, called in his own name a council of high metropolitans 
and bishops from distant parts of the Empire. 

Eusebius, however, was not disposed to wait idly for the slow 
gathering of a council, while Athanasius was entrenching himself 
and strengthening the orthodox organization in Alexandria. With 
others of his way of thinking he had already betaken himself to 
the court of Constantius at Antioch to devise some method of 
more speedy interference. There, in a synod of Asiatic clergy, 
it was decided to eliminate Pistus, who had proved a poor make- 
shift for a bishop, and to elect some more forceful personage to 
take the post which, to their eyes, had been vacant ever since the 
deposition of Athanasius at Tyre. Their choice fell on one 
Gregory of Cappadocia, whom they ordained and dispatched, 
early in March, 339, with a military escort supplied by Con- 
stantius, to eject Athanasius by armed violence, if necessary.*”° 
In vain, the great mass of Alexandrian Christians refused to have 
anything to do with Gregory and clung to their original bishop. 


100 Of course it was scandalously illegal for a body of foreign bishops, not 
even sitting in Egypt, to elect and ordain a bishop for Alexandria. Supra, p. 
401, n. 208, 


492 THE SEE OF PETER 


The churches were stormed and one burned to the ground. Over 
‘the bodies of the wounded and slain they were delivered to the 
partisans of Gregory. Athanasius remained long enough to send 
out a solemn letter of expostulation to the whole episcopate of 
the Church and then withdrew to Rome, whither he had just been 
summoned by Julius. He was not the only refugee in distress. 
Paul, the bishop whom Eusebius had driven from Constantinople, 
Marcellus of Ancyra, a stout advocate of ‘‘ homoousios” at 
Nicaea, and various other eastern bishops and priests, newly 
expelled from their places by the zeal of Eusebius and his friends, 
were all assembling at Rome as their only shelter. And one by 
one, as they arrived with their tales of Arian cruelty and injustice, 
Julius received them into his hospitable communion. 

Julius’ letter of invitation to the Eusebians, in which he had 
named a day toward the close of the year 339 for the gathering 
of his council and to which he had added some words of rebuke 
for their illegal transferences of bishops, contrary to the rule of 
Nicaea, had been carried to Antioch by two priests, Elpidius and 
Philoxenus. But, instead of being allowed to return promptly 
with their answer, the messengers were detained on one pretext 
or another through the late months of 339, until January, 340. 
By that time, the day set for the opening of the council had 
passed. When the two at last appeared again in Rome, they bore 
a missive from the Eusebians, containing not only a refusal to 
come to Julius at all, couched in language that was felt to be 
sarcastically ceremonious, but also certain other disagreeable and 
provocative remarks. Although not so fortunate, they wrote, as 
the Roman bishop in the size and resources of their churches, 
they still preferred to regard all bishops as equal in authority and 
the acts of one synod as worthy of consideration by another 
branch of the Church. After all, the Romans, though, no doubt, 
very famous for their orthodoxy, had in the first place received 
their teachers and their doctrines from the East. Why should 
the East now be expected to take second rank? Their forefathers 
had accepted as decisive the Roman sentence against Novatian.*** 
Why, then, should not the Romans accept the sentence of Tyre 


101 Supra, pp. 382, 386-387, 420. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 493 


against Athanasius? Julius might choose between them and the 
men whom they had excommunicated. He certainly could not 
continue in communion with every one. Let him acknowledge 
their right to be their own governors and judges in their own 
territory and they would be pleased to return to harmonious and 
cordial relations.*°? ‘The Eusebians were confident by now of 
Constantius and in secure possession of Alexandria. They felt 
that they could afford to stand up to the Roman See. They had 
also, undoubtedly, lost their hope of ousting Athanasius by 
judicial means from his support in western quarters. 

In the summer or autumn of 340, the deferred Roman synod 
met, not in the Lateran but in the church of Vito, one of the 
priests who had been at Nicaea.*°® Since the Eusebian bishops 
refused to participate, it was hardly more than a gathering of 
Italians to hear and pass upon the appeals of the refugees whom 
the Eusebians had expelled. One after another, the cases of 
Athanasius, Marcellus, Paul, Lucius of Adrianople, Asclepas of 
Gaza and other exiles were investigated and, one after another, 
the defendants were acquitted of heresy or misdemeanor and pro- 
nounced rightfully entitled to their ecclesiastical offices. When 
the sessions were over, Julius wrote a long and serious letter to 
the Eusebian prelates at Antioch, from which we quote largely 
below. It was a creditable letter, dignified yet not arrogant, be- 
traying no personal pique but only anxiety for the state of the 
Church and concern that justice should be done to its ministers. 
He reminded the Eusebians that they themselves had revised or 
ignored the verdict of the Nicene Council by readmitting Arius, 
that Athanasius had been exculpated by the testimony of some 
eighty bishops of his diocese of Egypt and that their own dele- 
gates had been the first to suggest that Julius call a council at 
Rome for the purpose of a new trial. He assured them that they 
had been at fault in neglecting to send him their proofs of 
Athanasius’ guilt and that he was still willing to convoke another 
council and reopen the matter, whenever they chose to appear. 


102 The tenor of this letter may be compared with that of the letter written 
by the Asiatic Firmilian in the previous century and that of the encyclical of the 
eastern bishops at Sardica and of some passages in the letters of Basil and in the 
poem of Gregory Nazianzen on the Council of 381. Supra, p. 411; infra, pp. 522, 
650, 683. 103 Supra, p. 470, n. 64, 


494 THE SEE OF PETER 


He ended by informing them that a case of so grave a nature, 
involving so old an apostolic church as that of Alexandria, should 
not have been tried at all without his participation and that by 
ancient custom complaints against the Alexandrian bishop should 
be referred in the first instance to Rome for a just sentence to 
be issued there.*°** He sent his letter not, this time, by priests 
but by one of Constans’ high officials, Count Gabianus. 

During this same summer, the two western emperors, Con- 
stans and Constantine II, fell out with each other. Constantine 
was defeated and killed and Constans, the patron of Julius, be- 
came by annexation of his brother’s territory master of more than 
two-thirds of the whole Empire, from Britain to the Black Sea 
and the borders of Egypt. 

We hear of no reply from the Eusebians to Julius. He may 
have expected none, but a change of mood showed itself in their 
next meeting, a synod of some ninety or a hundred bishops, called 
at Antioch, in 341, to celebrate the dedication of the magnificent, 
new basilica, begun by the emperors’ father, Constantine I 
Rumors from Alexandria of the ruthless persecution applied 
there in order to crush the demonstrations of loyalty to Athana- 
sius had an ugly sound that could not quite be glossed over or 
explained away. Athanasius’ ally, Julius, was proving unexpect- 
edly formidable, now that the domain of his emperor Constans 
so far excelled that of the eastern emperor Constantius. Under 
these circumstances, the Synod of Antioch assumed a mild and 
defensive tone, issued letters protesting that its members were 
not really Arian at heart and drafted four different, conciliatory — 
forms of creed, in which the most disputatious points were 
dexterously avoided and the most controversial terms quietly 
omitted.*°° Almost any type of Christian might sign any one of 
them with a clear conscience. The one object of the assembly’s 
outspoken attack was Marcellus of Ancyra, who, as a matter of 
fact, had drifted in his later writings perilously near to Sabel- | 

104 He seems to have been recalling the precedents set by Dionysius and 
Felix I. Supra, pp. 434, 441. 

105 A translation of two of the four creeds of Antioch is given in J. C. Ayer, 
Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 313-315. A selection from the 


council’s canons on discipline is in ibid., pp. 362-364, 3690-370. These canons were 
approved by the western churches, although the creeds were not. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 495 


lianism in his horrified reaction against Arianism. Before dis- 
persing, the synod, at Constantius’ request, appointed a deputa- 
tion of eastern bishops, Narcissus of Neronias,’°° Theodore of 
Heraclea and Marcus of Arethusa, to wait upon Constans in the 
West, explain their attitude toward Athanasius, assure him of 
their pacific intentions and fidelity to the true faith and present 
to him a creed which explicitly repudiated several of the old Arian 
phrases, though still leaving somewhat indefinite the origin and 
character of the divine Son. 

Late in that year, Eusebius himself died but the praetorian 
prefect at Constantinople received Constantius’ instructions to 
see that another of the same party was installed as his successor. 
The unfortunate Paul, who hastened from Rome, hoping to re- 
cover his see, was removed in chains to the Persian border and 
finally strangled. Constantius by now was a more uncompromis- 
ing Arian than his teachers. Bishops and theologians might feel 
obliged to modify their views or the expression of them as the 
winds veered, but an emperor, once thoroughly convinced, saw 
no need of temporizing. 

At this point, however, Constans, remembering perhaps his 
father’s mode of dealing with church difficulties, proposed to his 
brother that the clergy of their respective dominions hold a joint 
council at some midway spot to see if the status of Athanasius 
and all other questions under dispute could not be settled by 
mutual discussion. The place selected by the two rulers was 
Sardica, the modern Sofia, a town just over the boundary of 
Thrace, on the edge of the territory of Constantius. Athanasius 
received orders from Constans to present himself there for a new 
trial and obeyed, after two interviews with the emperor, in Milan 
and in Gaul. Julius waived his previous demand that the East- 
erners come to the See of Rome and selected two priests and a 
deacon to act as his representatives at Sardica. Hosius, the 
veteran bishop of Cordova, who, in all likelihood, had been largely 
responsible for the imposition of the shibboleth “ homoousios ”’ 
upon the Church at Nicaea,’°’ was deputed by Constans to lead 
the western party now and to preside over the whole assembly. 


106 Narcissus had been a personal friend of Arius. He had also been at Nicaea. 
107 Supra, p. 471. 


496 THE SEE OF PETER 


The Council of Sardica gathered in the autumn of either 342 
or 343. About eighty western bishops made the journey, some 
forty of. whom came from Illyricum and the neighboring prov- 
inces, the rest from farther West. At least ten crossed from Italy 
and six from Spain. Approximately the same number arrived 
from the East. They were headed by Stephen, the new bishop 
of Antioch, and escorted by two of Constantius’ counts and an 
armed guard. Many from farther Asia Minor and other outlying 
districts were scarcely acquainted with the problems at issue and 
came indifferently or reluctantly. Two had the audacity to join 
the camp of Hosius.*®® But the leaders of the eastern contingent 
were strenuous Eusebians *°® or semi-Arians of the type who had 
been at Tyre. They hated Athanasius personally for his relent- 
less insistence upon the Nicene standard of orthodoxy and were 
also determined to maintain at all costs the right of the eastern 
church to try and depose one of its own bishops without hindrance 
or criticism from the West. 

On their arrival in Sardica, they refused to meet with the 
western party as long as it persisted in associating with Athana- 
sius, Marcellus and Asclepas of Gaza as if they were still lawful 
bishops. In vain Hosius urged them to present their evidence 
against the three men before the council or even before himself 
alone, promising that if they failed to substantiate their charges 
and yet were unwilling to reinstate Athanasius, he himself would 
find a place for him in the church of Spain.**° The Eusebians 
would not be placated with anything short of a preliminary recog- 
nition by the Westerners of the sentence of Tyre. Once that was 
granted and Athanasius and his companions treated as veritably 
excommunicate, they would cooperate in a new trial and consent 
to abide by the result. The Westerners as stubbornly refused to 
regard Athanasius as an outcast even for a moment. The Euse- 
bians then held a meeting apart, in which they drew up an en- 
cyclical letter, addressed to all the clergy and faithful every- 

108 They were a bishop from Petra in Palestine and one from Arabia. 

109 The name Eusebian is still applicable to these men, although Eusebius was 
dead. They are also sometimes known as semi-Arians, for they did not hold the 
tenets of Arius in the original, strict sense. They merely contended that some 


distinction should be drawn between the divinity of the Father and that of the Son. 
110 Hosius himself relates this in his letter to Constantius. Infra, p. 577. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 497 


where, setting forth their view of the situation. They declared 
that it was impossible for the western bishops at their distance to 
appreciate the confusion that had been created in the East by the 
temporary return of Athanasius, Marcellus and the rest to their 
old sees or for themselves to permit the western clergy to quash 
the decisions of an eastern tribunal. They said that on their 
arrival in Sardica they had been affronted by the spectacle of the 
very persons whom they had once solemnly condemned sitting in 
the midst of the western brethren as if nothing had happened. 
No notice had been taken of their own proposition to send new 
commissioners from each party to Egypt to collect more evidence 
there on the subject of Athanasius’ alleged misdeeds. They could 
not acquiesce in such an infringement of their just rights and had 
therefore withdrawn from the assembly and now threw the re- 
sponsibility of schism upon the others. They reaffirmed all their 
previous sentences of excommunication and deposition, including 
under them henceforth not only the persons already condemned 
at Tyre but also Julius of Rome, Hosius of Cordova and Maximin 
of Trier, who had been hospitable to Athanasius in his exile. 
They then departed in a body to Philippopolis in the heart of 
Thrace. 

The western bishops took up the gauntlet. They first dis- 
posed formally of the cases of the three accused men before them. 
Athanasius, they said, needed no further vindication than the 
testimony of the Egyptian bishops to Julius and the notorious 
character of the assaults upon him at Tyre. Marcellus and 
Asclepas they examined and tested and found innocent. They 
then took up the numerous accusations which came pouring in 
against the Eusebians and their agents and inspected the wit- 
nesses, victims, records and implements of cruelty that were 
transported in quantities to Sardica from Egypt and Asia. They 
ended by deposing and excommunicating for crime and heresy 
Stephen of Antioch, Acacius of Caesarea in Palestine, Narcissus 
and Theodore, who had gone on the mission to Constans, Ursacius 
and Valens, two Pannonian bishops, and several others prominent 
in Eusebian activities. Theodore, Ursacius and Valens had 
served on the infamous commission for the Council of Tyre that 


498 THE SEE OF PETER 


had worked up the scandalous evidence against Athanasius. 
Valens had been newly detected in fomenting a sedition in 
Aquileia, in order to get himself elected bishop there and so 
engineer his transference from his less distinguished see in the 
Balkans. There was some talk in the council of another western 
creed and a tentative draft was actually composed, with a letter 
recommending it to the consideration of Julius. But Athanasius, 
after some exertion, prevailed upon the members to be content 
with the creed of Nicaea and not to follow the heretics’ example 
and have a new creed every year.** 

The council, however, did not disband without passing certain 
disciplinary canons that seemed demanded by the situation. 
Canons I and II prohibited again the translation of a bishop 
from one see to another. Others restricted the visits of bishops 
to the imperial court or lengthy sojourns anywhere outside their 
own dioceses. Three novel canons provided that bishops accused 
for any cause must first be tried by their fellow bishops of the 
same province, sitting alone, a rule that would hereafter exclude 
Asiatics from the first trial of an Alexandrian. If either a con- 
demned bishop or his judges were dissatisfied, they might “ honor 
the memory of Peter, the apostle,” and appeal to the bishop of 
Rome, who, if he thought there had been miscarriage of justice, 
might appoint judges to review the case and be represented him- 
self by a legate on the second tribunal. In the present instance, 
of course, the council might be regarded as such a tribunal. 
These canons and other documents and records were enclosed in 
a letter from the council to Julius at Rome, a loyal and respectful 
report of the whole proceeding “ to their head, that is, to the See 
of Peter, the apostle.” Two passages only in this letter might, 
one would imagine, have sounded ominously to a sensitive 
bishop’s ear. ‘‘ The devout emperors themselves gave us per- 
mission to debate everything.” Julius will read also the letter 
we have written to ‘“‘ the most blessed Augusti”’ and see that we 
have indeed covered every question under dispute. The mon- 
arch is there, unforgettable, in the background. The coun- 

111 This tentative creed and the letter to Julius, which was never sent, are 


preserved in the so-called Collection of the Deacon Theodosius, J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Latina, Vol. LVI, pp. 839 sqq. 


\ 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 499 


cil convoked by him must needs have his consent for a free 
discussion and must render him an account of what it has 
done. The West was beginning its experience with Christian 
princes. 

Julius, however, appears to have been on the whole quite 
satisfied, for he ordered the canons of Sardica engrossed on the 
registers of the Roman church, below the canons of Nicaea.**™* 
The machinery devised by the council for the exercise of his 
privilege of creating a court of appeal was not allowed to hamper 
him or any of his successors. They continued, as before, to de- 
cide in person at Rome most cases that came before them. But 
it meant something that the appellate jurisdiction of Rome had 
been expressly confirmed by the episcopate of the West and by 
the head of the see of Alexandria. 

The Council of Sardica, which was primarily intended to bring 
peace and a better understanding to East and West, merely in- 
tensified their hostility. Each party had now seemingly com- 
mitted itself to war by its anathemas against the leaders of the 
other. Bishops of Rome had never, so far as we know, been so 
openly defied. The emperor Constantius straightway took up the 
cudgels for his Eusebians and forbade the three eastern bishops 
who had been a second time condemned, to show themselves in 
their old sees on pain of death. But the Westerners could also 
produce an imperial ally. In 344, Vincent, bishop of Capua, and 
Euphratas, bishop of Cologne, landed in Antioch under the pro- 
tection of Constans’ general Sabianus, bringing with them a letter 
from Constans to his brother, sternly expostulating with him for 


his attitude toward Athanasius and threatening to go himself in 


force to Alexandria and set things right there. A vile and petty 
plot, hatched by Stephen of Antioch to blast the reputation of 
Euphratas, proved a fiasco and the news of it reaching Constan- 
tius’ ears so startled him that he gave unexpected attention to 
the western envoys and sent a dispatch to the prefect of Egypt 
to leave the Athanasian Christians in peace. The Eusebians, in 
some alarm, retaliated by sending four bishops to Constans at 


111a Tn 419, Pope Zosimus quoted Canon V of the Council of Sardica to his 
legate at the Council of Carthage as one of the canons of Nicaea. The Africans 
sent to Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch to inquire if that were correct. 


500 THE SEE OF PETER 


Milan. In his presence, they refrained from mentioning Atha- 
nasius, who, they knew, had by this time Constans’ unshakable, 
personal support, but they insisted again upon their own amicable 
dispositions, pointing out merely the impossibility of uniting with 
Marcellus, who, as we have said, had in fact shown undeniable 
traces of Sabellianism and whose pupil, Photinus, bishop of 
Sirmium, was now plainly denying the separate personality of 
the divine Word. 

By Constans’ wish, a number of western bishops were sum- 
moned to Milan to meet these eastern deputies and make one 
more effort to adjust their grievances.*” The Roman bishop, as 
usual, sent two legates. In the atmosphere of the court, both 
sides ignored or forgot the resounding anathemas of Sardica and 
appeared willing for some concession. The case of Athanasius 
was still shelved. The Westerners agreed to condemn Photinus 
but asked, as the next step, that the Easterners abjure Arianism. 
This demand apparently revived too keenly the memories of old 
battle. The Easterners refused to disavow their past to such an 
extent and left Milan in anger. Two bishops, however, Ursacius 
and Valens, who until now had belonged to their party but whose 
sees lay within the dominion of Constans, decided that it was 
imprudent to risk his disapproval any longer, and before the 
assembly broke up, made public renunciation of their own Arian 
beliefs. 

The following year, 345, Constans took a more decisive stand 
in behalf of the catholic cause. Gregory, the Eusebian bishop 
of Alexandria, died and Constans sent a peremptory note to his 
brother, bidding him to forestall any attempt on the part of the 
Eusebians to ordain a successor, and to recall Athanasius. Con- 
stantius, on the advice of his counsellors, bowed to the inevitable 
and sent three letters to Athanasius, urging his immediate return 
and guaranteeing his safety against all assault. For almost a 
year Athanasius hesitated. The record of Constantius and his 
officials in Egypt was not such as to inspire confidence and he 

112 We have no record of this meeting at Milan, only such brief references as 
that in Liberius’ letter, infra, p. 561, and Hilary’s allusion to Photinus, “ who two 


years ago was condemned as a heretic by the Synod of Milan.” Hilary, Frag- 
menta Historica, Series B, II, 5, 4, and II, 9, 1-2. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 501 


dreaded becoming the occasion of fresh torments for his people. 
He finally concluded that Constans might be trusted to provide 
for their protection and wrote that he would go back. He went 
first to see Constans and then to bid farewell to Julius and his 
other friends in Rome. Julius gave him a warm letter of friend- 
ship and congratulation to carry to the long-suffering church of 
Alexandria. His return assumed somewhat the aspect of a tri- 
umphal journey. Everywhere, even in the East, he was received 
by rejoicing friends. Sixteen bishops of Palestine dared to meet 
him at Jerusalem to do him honor. In October, 346, he was once 
more at home. 

That same year, Ursacius, and Valens, who, in spite of their 
recantation at Milan, had not yet been recognized by Julius and 
were still technically under the ban of the excommunication at 
Sardica, came down to Rome and made their full submission “ to 
the most blessed pope.’”’ They wrote and signed a humble con- 
fession of the worthlessness of the charges that had been fabri- 
cated against Athanasius, of their own earnest desire to be in 
communion with him and of their utter abhorrence of the heresy 
of Arius. They were thereupon forgiven and taken back into 
fellowship. The See of Rome stood outwardly loftier than it had 
ever been before. Yet the power that had enabled it to override 
the will of the East was not its own inherent virtue but the ex- 
traneous, material power of the State. 

For four more years, the orthodox church organization pre- 
served its unquestioned dominance in the West and met with no 
overt resistance in the East. But, in 350, the tables were abruptly 
turned with the assassination of Constans by a band of military 
conspirators at the foot of the Pyrenees. On receipt of this in- 
telligence, his sister Eutropia, living at Rome, proclaimed her son 
Nepotianus as western emperor in his uncle’s stead. But Count 
Magnentius, the choice of the legions, sent a general to Rome to 
deal with his young rival and Nepotianus was killed in the fight- 
ing around the city. Eutropia herself was then executed and 
many noble Romans suspected of fidelity to the house of Con- 
stantine were slain or banished. Constantius, however, did not 
let the deaths of his brother and sister wait for vengeance. In 


502 THE SEE OF PETER 


351, he began moving slowly westward, Magnentius slowly fall- 
ing back as he advanced. In 352, he crossed the passes of the 
Alps and descended into Italy. A year later, Magnentius com- 
mitted suicide in Gaul and the world was at Constantius’ feet. 
Already the bishops Ursacius and Valens, perceiving the new 
complexion which these events put upon their personal affairs, 
had made haste to rejoin the Eusebians, protesting that they had 
recanted in Italy only under compulsion. But in April, 352, 
before Constantius entered Rome, Julius died. He had played, 
on the whole, an able and honorable part as bishop, starting no 
quarrels and using his influence to the best of his lights in the 
interests of justice and unity. He was taken from the troubles 
to come. 


The source material for Julius and his immediate successors is more 
abundant than the sum of what we have had hitherto for all their prede- 
cessors. The History of Eusebius, for example, is now carried on by three 
different Greek writers of the early fifth century, Socrates, Sozomen, and 
Theodoret, each of whom often incorporates contemporary documents en- 
tire. The works of Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Optatus, Jerome, Rufinus 
and Augustine, all contain, in one form or another, much of historical im- 
portance for this period. In 353, the year after Julius’ death, begin the 
extant books of the pagan History of Ammianus Marcellinus. The canons 
and encyclicals of councils and other miscellaneous matter are preserved 
in various collections. We have not space any longer to give every available 
extract on the topic in hand and can select only what seem the most sig- 
nificant and illuminating. 

On Julius himself and the appellate jurisdiction of the Papacy, see 
among modern works, J. Langen, Geschichte der rémischen Kirche (4 vols., 
Bonn, 1881-1893), Vol. I, pp. 424 sqq.; F. Loofs, Studien und Kritiken 
(Gotha, 1908-1911), p. 293; M. Friedberg, Appelationem an den Papst, in 
J. J. Herzog and A. Hauck, Realencyklopadie fiir protestantische Theologie 
und Kirche (24 vols., Leipzig, 1896-1913), Vol. I; C. H. Turner, The Genu- 
ineness of the Sardican Canons, in Journal of Theological Studies (London, 
1902), Vol. III, pp. 370-397; C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles (8 vols., 
Paris, 1907-1921), Vol. I, pp. 771 sqq.; P. Bernardakis, Les Appels au Pape 
dans PEglise Grecque jusqu’d Photius, in Echos d’Orient (Paris, 1903), Vol. 
VI, pp. 30-42, 118-125, 249-257; L. Duchesne, Early History of the Chris- 
tian Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 vols., London, 1910- 
1924), Vol. II, chap. VI; B. J. Kidd, History of the iach to A.D. 461 
(3 vols., Oxford, 1922- HS. Vol. II, shark IV. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 503 


1. THE APPEAL OF ATHANASIUS TO ROME 


Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos, 20. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 279-282. 


[The preceding sections contain a long letter, put out 
by a synod of Egyptian bishops in defence of Athanasius, 
in which they state that an effort is being made to induce 
Julius of Rome to recognize the Arian pseudo-bishop Pistus 
and that an Arian deputation has been sent to him, consist- 
ing of a priest, Macarius, and two deacons. | 

20. This letter the Egyptians sent to everyone and to 
Julius, bishop of Rome. And the Eusebians wrote also to 
Julius and thinking to frighten me,’ requested him to call 
a council and to be himself the judge, if he so pleased. So, 
after I went up to Rome, Julius wrote a suitable reply to 
the Eusebians and sent them two of his own priests, Elpidius 
and Philoxenus. But when the Eusebians heard about me 
they were thrown into confusion, for they had not expected 
that I would go there of my own accord, and they declined 
the invitation of Julius, offering unsatisfactory excuses but 
in fact afraid that they would be convicted of the mal- 
practices to which Valens and Ursacius later confessed.*** 

113 J.e., Athanasius. His Apologia is written in the first person. 

114 Ursacius and Valens were bishops of Singidunum, the modern Belgrade, 
and of Mursa, the modern Eszeq, respectively. They had come under the influ- 
ence of Arius and, as far as they were ever sincere in their beliefs, appear to have 
been Arians. They had taken part in the Council of Tyre, that first condemned 
Athanasius in 335. Their confession and recantation, to which Athanasius here 
refers, occurred in 346, when for a few years the Athanasian party was in the 
ascendant. Supra, pp. 501, 502; infra, pp. 531-533. In his Historia Arianorum, 
11, Athanasius gives a slightly fuller description of the Eusebians’ state of mind 
at this time. ‘“ And Julius wrote and sent the priests Elpidius and Philoxenus and 
fixed a day for meeting, when they either might come or know that they were 
altogether suspect. But as soon as the Eusebians heard that the trial would be 
ecclesiastical and that no count would appear at it, no soldiers would stand before 
the doors, and that the findings of the synod would depend upon no imperial com- 
mandment (for by such means they have always fortified themselves against the 
bishops and without them they have not courage to open their lips), they were so 
alarmed that they detained the priests even after the day set and invented a 


preposterous excuse, that they were unable to go then, because of the war which 
was being started by the Persians.” 


504 THE SEE OF PETER 


However, more than fifty bishops came together in the 
place where the priest Vito held his congregation *” and they 
accepted my defense and admitted me to their communion 
and their love. And they were indignant against the Euse- 
bians and asked Julius to write to that effect to those who 
had written to him.**® This he did and sent his letter by 
the hand of Count Gabianus. 


Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 7-8. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 1049-1056. | 


7. |The opponents of the Nicene creed had by this time 
taken possession of all the noblest sees in the East, including 
Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople, and all the eastern 
bishops who upheld the Nicene settlement had been de- 
posed.| But the head of the Roman church and all the 
clergy of the West looked upon this as a personal insult. 
For from the beginning they had approved the creed of the 
assembly of Nicaea in every point and to the present day 
they have not ceased to agree with it. So when Athanasius 
came to them they received him warmly and took upon 
themselves the judgment of his cause. But Eusebius was 
vexed at this and wrote to Julius that he might act as judge 
of the sentence passed on Athanasius at Tyre. But before 
he learned the opinion of Julius, shortly after the meeting 
of the synod at Antioch, he died. .. . 

8. But Athanasius fled from Alexandria and came to 
Rome. And it happened that Paul, the bishop of Constan- 
tinople, and Marcellus of Ancyra were together there also, — 
and Asclepas of Gaza,’ who had resisted the Arians and 

115 This is the Roman synod of 340. Supra, p. 403. 

116 J.e., the Eusebian bishops at Antioch, who had written a discourteous 


answer to J ulius, refusing to attend his council. This letter is described in our 
next extract. 


117 Paul and Asclepas were orthodox supporters of the Nicene theology, like 
Athanasius. Marcellus had been a prominent antagonist of Arius at Nicaea and 
had afterward written a book to expose his | errors at greater length. This book, 


- 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 505 
had been accused by some heterodox persons of overturning 
the altar and on this count had been deposed. In his place, 
Quintianus was ruling the church of Gaza. And Lucius, 
bishop of Adrianople, who had been accused on another 
charge and for that reason deprived of his church, was 
also staying at Rome. The Roman bishop investigated the 
case of each man and when he discovered that they all agreed 
upon the creed of the Council of Nicaea, he received them as 
of one mind into communion. And inasmuch as the over- 
sight of everyone belongs to him, through the merit of his 
see, he restored to each of them his proper church. And 
he wrote to the bishops of the East, reproving them for their 
wrong judgment of these men and for the disturbance they 
had created in the Church by not upholding the decrees of 
Nicaea. And he bade a few of them all come to him by a 
certain day *” to show that they had now arrived at a right 
decision. Otherwise, he said threateningly, he would not 
endure it in the future if they did not cease from innovations. 
Such was his letter. And Athanasius and Paul, with their 
followers, each regained his own see*” and they sent the 
letters of Julius around among the eastern bishops. But 


however, went too far in the direction of Sabellianism, a danger to which opponents 
of Arianism were often liable. Marcellus had been condemned by the council of 
bishops at Jerusalem in 335. Even the Romans were a little uncertain of Mar- 
cellus and Julius asked him for his profession of faith. Infra, p. 513. 

118 Socrates in this same connection uses a similar phrase. “And they ex- 
plained their situation to Julius, bishop of Rome. And he, inasmuch as the church 
of Rome has the prerogative, armed them with forcible letters and sent them back 
to the East.” Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 15. Sozomen’s word, which we translate 
“ oversight,” is xndeuovia. Socrates’ word, translated “ prerogative,” is mpovouia. 
The fact that these two Greek historians use different words here but preserve 
the same turn of idea suggests that they both were basing this part of their narra- 
tive on some common Roman or Latin source. It would hardly have occurred to 
them both to make just this comment of their own accord, although their general 
attitude of vague veneration for the Roman See allows them to transcribe it with- 
out objection. The first Roman trial of these dispossessed eastern bishops was 
held by Julius alone, the second by the synod under Julius, after the Eusebians 
had refused to cooperate. 

119 The day appointed was probably toward the end of 339. Julius appears 
to have sent out his priests with the letter the last of May or the first of June of 
that year. 

120 It is uncertain whether Athanasius did or did not go back to Alexandria 
at this time. 


506 THE SEE OF PETER 


the latter were angered by them and met at Antioch ” and 
composed a reply to Julius, a letter in very elegant and suave 
language but full of hostility and even dangerous menace. 
For they acknowledged in it that the Roman church was 
honored by everyone, as a church that had been from the 
first the school of the apostles and the mother seat * of true 
piety, even though the teachers of her doctrine had come 
to her from the East. But they did not propose on that 
account to take the second place, because their church was 
not first in size and numbers, as long as it did excel in virtue 
and understanding. And they brought charges against Julius 
for communing with the party of Athanasius and were in- 
dignant with him for disdaining their synod *”* and annulling 
their verdict. And they denounced his action as unjust and 
as contrary to ecclesiastical law. Then, after upbraiding 
him in such style and declaring that he had done them grave 
injury, they offered Julius peace and communion if he would 
recognize the deposition of those whom they had expelled 
and the ordination of those whom they had elected instead, 
and they threatened him with the contrary, if he overrode 
their decisions. For, they argued, the priests of the East 
before them had made no objection when Novatian was 
expelled from the church of Rome.™ As for their infrac- 
tions of the decrees of Nicaea, they made no reply to 
him there, explaining that they had many arguments to 
prove the necessity of what they had done, but that it was 
futile to justify themselves now on that score, when they 
were being blamed for trangressions in every direction at 
once. 

121 They gathered at Antioch late in 339 or in the first weeks of 340. 

122 The word is actually “ metropolis.” 

123 Te, the Council of Tyre, which had deposed Athanasius, in 335. ‘This is 
the technical grievance of the eastern bishops against Julius all through, that he 


failed to recognize the sentence which they had passed against one of their own 
number. 


124 Supra, PP. 355, 382, 386, 420. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 507 


Julius, Letter to the Eusebian bishops at Antioch, quoted 
by Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos, 21-35. Text. 
J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 281 sqq. 


Julius to Danius, Flaccillus, Narcissus, Eusebius, Maris, 
Macedonius, Theodore **”’ and their friends who have writ- 
ten to us from Antioch, our beloved brethren, greeting in 
the Lord. 

I have read the letter which you sent back to me by 
my priests, Elpidius and Philoxenus, and was surprised that, 
whereas we had written to you in love and sincerity of truth, 
you should answer us in so hostile and unsuitable a manner. 
For the pride and arrogance of the writers were conspicuous 
throughout their writing. Such conduct does not belong to 
faith in Christ. A letter written in love should receive a 
response of equal love and not one of enmity. Was it not 
a sign of love to send you priests to sympathize with those 
who are in difficulty and to invite those who wrote to me 
to come hither, so that all questions might quickly be solved 
and adjusted and our brethren be no longer in trouble and 
no further opprobrium rest upon you? But, for some reason, 
my intention has so affected you as to make us feel that 
you are uttering mockingly, with a sort of malice, the very 
words with which you ostensibly pay us honor. The priests 
also, whom I sent you, who should have come back in 
happiness, have, on the contrary, returned in distress for 
what they saw going on among you. For my part, when I 
had read your letter and pondered it carefully, I kept it to 
myself, thinking that, in spite of all, some of you would come 
and I should not need to produce it and it might not be 
made public and vex many of the people here. But when 
no one came and it grew necessary to bring it out, everyone 

125 Bishops respectively of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Antioch, Neronias in 


Cilicia, Constantinople, Chalcedon, Mopsuestia in Cilicia and Heraclea in Thrace. 
What significance there may be in the order of the names we do not know. 


508 THE SEE OF PETER 


was astonished, I assure you, and almost unable to believe 
that such a letter had really been written by you, for it was 
one of animosity far more than of love. And if the composer 
of it wrote out of ambition to display his eloquence, then 
his enterprise should find vent in other fields. For in the 
conduct of churches, shows of eloquence are not required, 
but the rules of the apostles and some care that none of the 
little ones in the Church be offended. .. . 

Now, what cause was there for irritation or what was 
there in our letter to make you angry? Was it because we 
invited you to come here for a synod? But this proposal 
you should rather have accepted with joy. For men who 
have confidence in what they have done or, as they say, in 
the decisions they have made, are not annoyed when their 
decision is reviewed by others but are bold, because their 
own just decision can never become unjust. On this account, 
the bishops who met in the great Council of Nicaea, by the 
will of God, decreed that the acts of one synod should be 
reviewed by a later synod, so that the men who pass judg- 
ment may have before their eyes the second judgment that 
is to come and may take great precautions to investigate 
thoroughly, and those who are judged may be certain that 
they have not been judged by their first judges out of 
hostility but with uprightness.* But, if you are refusing 
to maintain among you this ancient custom, which was re- 
corded and endorsed by the great council, your refusal is 
wrong, for a custom that has once prevailed in the Church 
and has been confirmed by councils is not properly to be 
rejected by a few individuals. 

Apart from this, you have no right to be vexed. For 
when the men who were sent from you Eusebians with 
your letter, —I mean Macarius, the priest, and Marty- 


126 There is no such article as this among the extant canons of Nicaea, but 
the council passed ordinances which were not incorporated with the rest, such as the 
rule for Easter observance. Supra, p. 487. It has been suggested, however, that 
Julius was here freely interpreting Canon V. The reading may be corrupt. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 509 


rius and Hesychius, the deacons,— after their arrival 
here proved unable to hold their ground against the 
priests who came from Athanasius and were being con- 
futed and exposed on every point, they then asked us to 
summon a synod and to invite both the bishop Athanasius 
of Alexandria and the Eusebians, so that in the presence 
of all parties a just conclusion might be reached. And 
then, they assured us, they would establish all the charges 
against Athanasius. For in our own congregation, Martyrius 
and Hesychius had been contradicted and the priests of 
Bishop Athanasius had convincingly withstood them. Mar- 
tyrius, to tell the truth, was refuted in every detail and on 
that account he asked for the synod. Now, even if neither 
Martyrius nor Hesychius had asked for a synod and if I of | 
my own will had summoned one, in order to confound the 
writers of your letter and to relieve our own brethren who 
were complaining of injustice, even so the summons would 
have been proper and right and ecclesiastical and good in the 
sight of God. But when the very men whom you Eusebians 
consider trustworthy have themselves asked us to call one, 
then you who are summoned should not be vexed but come 
with alacrity. ... If, as you write, every synod has final 
authority and a judge is dishonored if his verdict is reviewed 
by others, reflect, beloved, who are dishonoring a synod and 
who are undoing the judgments of the past... . 

The Arians, who were expelled for their impiety by 
_ Alexander of blessed memory, at that time bishop of Alex- 
andria,*’ were not only banned by the people of every city 
but were also anathematized by all who assembled in the 
great Council of Nicaea. Nor was theirs a negligible offense 
nor a sin against a man but against our Lord Jesus Christ 
himself, the Son of the living God. Nevertheless, they who 
were once proscribed by all the world and branded by the 
whole Church, are now said to be accepted again, a report 

127 Supra, p. 467. 


510 THE SEE OF PETER 


which, I think, should arouse even your indignation when 
you hear it. Who then are the dishonorers of a council? 
Are they not those who are setting at naught the votes of 
the three hundred ** and preferring impiety to piety? For 
the heresy of the Ariomaniacs was detected and condemned 
by all the bishops from everywhere, but the bishops Atha- 
nasius and Marcellus have many adherents who speak and 
write on their behalf. We have had testimony that Mar- 
cellus resisted the Arians in the Council of Nicaea. As for 
Athanasius, we have evidence that he was not proved guilty 
at Tyre and was not present at all in Mareotis, where the 
documents against him are said to have been produced. 
Now you know, beloved, that examinations conducted by 
one party alone have no validity and are regarded as suspect. 
In spite of this, we, to be correct, have shown no partiality 
either to you or to those who have written to us for the others, 
but we have invited you who wrote to us to come here and — 
also the many who have written in the others’ defense, so 
that the whole matter might be sifted out in a synod and an 
innocent man might not be called guilty nor a culprit treated 
as spotless. So not by us is a council dishonored but by those 
who have so soon, contrary to a judicial decision, received 
back the Arians, whom everyone condemned. Of the men 
who once judged them the greater part are now departed to 
be with Christ, but some are still in this life of trial and in- 
dignant that their judgment has been reversed. 

[He describes how, before the arrival of the Athanasian 
priests from Alexandria, Macarius, Martyrius and Hesychius 
had tried to persuade him to send letters to Pistus, who had 
been elected bishop by the Arians in Alexandria, and how 
Macarius had fled in the night from Rome when he knew 
that the Athanasians were on their way thither. | 

If, as you write, the decrees of councils ought to be 
enforced and the precedents set by the cases of Novatian 


128 The traditional number of bishops at Nicaea was three hundred or over. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE StI 


129 


and Paul of Samosata*”’ ought to be followed, all the more 
ought the ordinances of the three hundred bishops not to be 
reversed nor a catholic council dishonored by a few indi- 
viduals. . . . For not only have the Arians been received 
but also bishops have made a practice of moving from one 
place to another.’ Now, if you truly believe that all 
bishops have the same and equal dignity, and if you do not, 
as you write, esteem them in proportion to the size of their 
cities, then he that is entrusted with a small city ought to 
abide in the city entrusted to him and not despise his trust 
nor move to another that was not committed to him, scorn- 
ing that which was bestowed on him by God and loving the 
empty glory of men... . 

But, perhaps, the date set was a stumbling-block, since in 
your letter you blamed us, because we had allowed too short 
a time for the gathering of the synod. But this also, beloved, 
is a mere pretext. For if the day had overtaken any of you 
on the journey, the interval before the date appointed would 
then have been proved too short. But when persons did not 
choose to set out and kept back our priests until the month 
of January, their pretext was due to lack of confidence. For, 
as I have already said, they would have come, if they had 
had confidence, and they would not have heeded the length 
of the journey nor regarded the shortness of the interval 
but would have been sure of just and reasonable treatment. 
But, perhaps, the critical situation prevented them from 
coming. For in your letter, you made likewise the point 
that we should have considered the critical situation in the 
East and should not have summoned you to come away. 
But if this situation was so critical that you could not come, 
as you say, you should have considered the situation before 
this and have refrained from creating schism and mourning 
and lamentation in the churches. . . . 


129 Supra, PP. 354-355, 433-434. 
130 This was a violation of Canons XV and XVI of Nicaea. 


512 THE SEE OF PETER 

Furthermore, I must inform you that although I alone 
wrote the letter to you, the sentiment was not mine only 
but was shared by all the bishops in Italy and throughout 
these regions. I myself was not willing to have them all 
write, for fear that by their sheer number they would have 
excessive weight with you. None the less, the bishops met 
here at the season appointed and expressed the opinion which 
I now, in this my second letter, report to you and so, beloved, 
although I alone am writing, be assured that this is the 
feeling of us all... . 

[The accusations against Athanasius are conflicting; 
many have been disproved altogether. His trial was grossly 
unfair. The witnesses brought against him were persons of 
shady character. The evidence indicates a concerted con- 
spiracy. | 

Now, when all this had been told us and so many wit- 
nesses were appearing on his behalf and so much was being 
presented by him in his own vindication, what ought we to 
have done? What does the rule of the Church require of us, 
if not our refusal to condemn the man, nay, rather, our recep- 
tion and treatment of him like a bishop, as indeed we have 
treated him? Moreover, he has waited here a year and 
six months, expecting the arrival of you and of whoever 
wished to come, and by his presence he has put you all to 
shame, for he would not be here if he were not confident. 
He came, furthermore, not of his own volition but because 
he had received a letter of summons from us, like that which 
we wrote to you. Nevertheless, you have reproached us for 
transgression of the rules. Observe now, who have trans- 
gressed the rules, we who received a man upon such abun- 
dant testimony or those who in Antioch, thirty-six days 
distant from Alexandria, nominated an outsider as bishop 
and sent him down there with a military force!™ ... 

[It was unlawful to thrust Gregory, a total stranger, 


131 Supra, p. 401. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 513 


upon the Alexandrian church. Terrible violence and bru- 
tality have followed his entrance there. | 

As for Marcellus, since you have written of him also as 
an unbeliever in Christ, I am eager to inform you that he 
is here and has positively affirmed that your accusations 
against him are false. Moreover, when we asked him to 
state his faith, he made answer directly with boldness, so 
that we recognized that he professed nothing but the truth. 
For he professed as devout a belief in our Lord and Savior 
Jesus Christ as the catholic Church itself holds and he de- 
clared that he had not recently come to this belief but had 
reached it long ago. Indeed, our own priests who attended 
the Council of Nicaea, bore witness to his orthodoxy. .. . 
As long, then, as his faith was orthodox and he had witnesses 
to his orthodoxy, what again should we have done with him 
but treat him as a bishop, as we did, and not exclude him 
from communion? I have written you all this, not in order 
to defend them but to convince you that we have acted 
fairly and regularly in receiving these men and that you 
have no ground for resentment. .. . 

Not only have the bishops Athanasius and Marcellus 
come to us, complaining of the injustice done them, but 
many other bishops as well, from Thrace, from Coele- 
Syria,” from Phoenicia and Palestine. And many priests 
and persons from Alexandria and other districts met at the 
synod here and before all the assembled bishops made their 
statements and then lamented the violence and injury which 
their churches were enduring and asserted that still other 
churches were experiencing outrages, both in word and 
deed, like those perpetrated at Alexandria and in their 
own congregations. And priests have but now arrived 
with letters from Egypt and Alexandria, reporting that 
many bishops and priests who desired to come to our synod 
were prevented. And since the departure of Athanasius 

131a Vide supra, p. 79, N. 43. 


514 THE SEE OF PETER 


up to now, they say, bishops who were once confessors **” 
have been beaten with stripes and others are being kept in 
prison, and some old men, who have been very long in the 
episcopate, are put to labor in the public works and almost 
all the clergy and the laity of the catholic Church are subject 
to plot and persecution. . . . In addition, those who came 
to the synod made accusations so horrible against some of 
you, — to mention no names, — that I refused to write them 
down. You yourselves have probably heard them from 
others. On that account especially, I have written to urge 
you to come, so that you might be present and hear and 
every wrong might be set right and corrected. . . . 

Wherefore, as God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 
knoweth, I have thought it needful to write this to you out 
of care for your reputation, praying that the churches might . 
not fall into disorder but continue as they were ordained 
by the apostles, that you might even now abash those who, 
out of mutual hatred to one another, are bringing the - 
churches to this pass. For I have heard that some few 
persons are the authors of all this calamity. Make haste 
with your bowels of mercy to correct, as I said before, 
transgressions of the rule, so that whatever harm has already 
been done may be set right through your earnestness. 

And do not write: “‘ You have preferred the communion 
of Marcellus and Athanasius to ours,” for such words tend 
not to peace but to bitterness and hatred among breth- 
ren. ... If you think you can prove some of the charges 
against them and can convict them to their faces, then let 
whoever will come to us. For they have promised that they 
themselves would be ready to prove and establish what 
they have said to us. 

So give us notice of your coming, beloved, that we may 


132 7.¢., confessors during the last pagan persecutions. It would seem a crown- 
ing sin for any Christians to maltreat confessors. Athanasius mentions one Potam- 
mon, who had also been at Nicaea, who was beaten to death during the Arian 
disturbances in Egypt. Historia Arianorum, 12. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 515 


write both to them and to the bishops who again will have 
to assemble, that the culprits may be condemned in the 
presence of us all and there be no more confusion in the 
churches. What has already happened is enough! It is 
enough that bishops are being sentenced to banishment in 
the presence of bishops!*** But I must not say much of 
that, lest I appear to press too hard on those who were 
present on those occasions. But to speak candidly, things 
should not have gone so far. Petty spites should not have 
reached the present pitch. Granted the removal, as you 
write, of Athanasius and Marcellus from their sees, what 
then is to be said of the other bishops and priests, who, as 
I have told you, have come here from divers places? They 
also said that they had been driven out and had suffered 
similar abuses. O beloved, the judgments of the Church are 
no longer patterned upon the gospel but aim only at banish- 
ment and death. Suppose, as you insist, that some guilt had 
lain upon them, their cases should have been tried according 
to the rule of the Church, not in this way. You should have 
written to us all, that a just sentence might be issued by us 
all. For the sufferers were bishops and churches of no 
ordinary sort but those which the apostles themselves once 
governed in their own persons.’** 

And why was no word sent to us particularly concerning 
the church of the Alexandrians? Are you ignorant that the 
custom has been for word to be sent to us first and then for 
a just decision to be proclaimed from this spot? **’ So if 

133 Orthodox bishops had apparently been sentenced by Constantius or his 
officials in the presence of Eusebian or Arian bishops. 

184 Julius may be referring to the tradition that Mark founded the church 
of Alexandria. Paul may have preached at Ancyra, the city of Marcellus. Ter- 
tullian, Contra Marcionem, IV, 5. 

185 Julius actually claims here for himself only the right to hear and try any 
charge against the™bishop of Alexandria. But the sentence was later given an 
exaggerated interpretation. £.g., “Julius wrote ... that they had transgressed 
the canons of the Church, because they had not called him to their council, for, 
he said, it was an ecclesiastical law that whatever ordinances were made without 


the consent of the bishop of Rome were counted void.” Sozomen, Historia Ec- 
clesiastica, III, 10. See also Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 17. 


516 THE SEE OF PETER 


any grave suspicion rested upon the bishop there, notice of 
it should have been dispatched to the church here. As it is, 
they failed to inform us and acted by themselves, as they 
saw fit, and now wish to obtain our sanction, although we do 
not condemn him. Not like this were the instructions of 
Paul, not like this the traditions of the Fathers. This is 
another mode of procedure, a novel practice. I beseech 
you, bear with me patiently. What I write is for our 
common good. What we have learned from blessed Peter, 
the apostle, this I declare to you and I should not have 
written it, for I supposed you all understood it, had not 
these events so distressed us. ... I ask you that such 
things shall not occur again, and, further, that you will 
write to condemn the persons who are the cause of them, 
that the churches may no longer suffer such hurt nor any 
bishop or priest be insolently abused nor any one be com- 
pelled to act contrary to his belief, as they have told us they 
were, nor we become a laughing stock to the pagans and, 
above all, that we arouse not the wrath of God. For each 
of us shall render an account in the day of judgment for 
the deeds he has done here. May we all hold the true faith 
of God, so that the churches may recover their own bishops 
and may rejoice always in Christ Jesus our Lord, through 
whom be glory to the Father forever and ever! Amen. I 
pray that you may be strong in the Lord, brethren beloved 
and greatly desired. 


2. THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA AND THE SCHISM OVER THE 
JURISDICTION OF ROME 


Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 1o-12. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 1057 sqq. 


10... . And when Julius achieved nothing by the letter 
he had written on behalf of them [the exiled eastern 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 517 


bishops] to the clergy of the East, he reported their mis- 
fortunes to Constans, the emperor. Then the latter wrote 
to his brother Constantius to send him some of the eastern 
bishops to justify their action. And three were selected for 
this errand, Narcissus, bishop of Irenopolis in Cilicia, Theo- 
dore of Heraclea in Thrace and Marcus of Arethusa in Syria. 
And when they had arrived in Italy, they defended their 
conduct and attempted to persuade the emperor that the 
sentence of the eastern council had been just. And when 
they were asked for their faith, they made no mention of 
that which they had defined at Antioch** but presented 
another creed in writing and even this was inconsistent with 
the confession of Nicaea. [Constans perceives that they 
had basely conspired against Athanasius and Paul and sends 
them back to the East. | 

11 Then, at the end of three years, the eastern bishops 
again sent another confession to the western bishops, which 
is known as “ the long-drawn creed,” because it is composed 
of more words and names than its predecessors. ... And 
the western clergy would not accept it, for they said that 
they were satisfied with the confession of Nicaea and beyond 
that they thought there was no need of troubling further. 
But when Constans asked of his brother as a favor that the 
partisans of Athanasius be restored to their proper sees and 
even wrote of it, he accomplished nothing, for the men of 
the heretical faction were working against it. ... [Atha- 
nasius and Paul finally ask Constans for a council to settle 
on an acceptable creed for the whole Church. Both em- 
perors then agree that bishops from East and West should 
meet for the purpose at Sardica. | 

And the eastern bishops met first at Philippopolis in 
Thrace and wrote to the western bishops, who had already 
gathered at Sardica, to expel the Athanasians from their 
sessions and from communion, on the ground that they had 

136 Supra, Pp. 494. 


518 THE SEE OF PETER 


been deposed. Otherwise, they said, they would not join 
them. Afterwards, they came to Sardica and insisted that 
they would not enter the church while the men whom they 
had deposed were there.**’ To this the western bishops 
replied that they had never excluded these men from com- 
munion nor would they exclude them now, especially as 
Julius, bishop of the Romans, had examined their case and 
had not condemned them;*** also, that the men were there 
and ready for trial and would refute at once the charges 
against them. But they achieved nothing by these com- 
munications, and when the appointed day had passed, on 
which they were required to decide the business for which 
they had been assembled, they wrote finally to each other 
in such terms that they ended by becoming more bitter than 
they had been before. Then each party met by itself and 
cast opposing votes.**? For the eastern bishops confirmed 
their previous sentences on Athanasius and Paul and Mar- 
cellus and Asclepas and they deposed Julius, bishop of Rome, 
because he had been the first to commune with them, and 
Hosius, the confessor, for the same reason and also because 
he was a friend of Paulinus and of Eustathius who had been 
heads of the church of Antioch,” and Maximin, bishop of 
Trier, because he first communed with Paul and then brought 
about his return to Constantinople.“* In addition, they de- 
posed Protogenes, bishop of Sardica, and Gaudentius.” .. . 
And after passing these resolutions, they notified the bishops 


137 Athanasius says that the eastern bishops brought two counts, imperial 
officers, with them to Sardica to overawe the others, but that the council met 
without counts and permitted no soldiers to enter. Apologia contra Arianos, 36; 
Historia Arianorum, 15. 

138 The council, in its letter to the church of Alexandria, says that Julius, 
“after cautious deliberation and inquiry, decided that there should be no hesita- 
tion whatever over communion with our brother Athanasius. For he had eighty 
bishops as his truthful witnesses.” Apologia contra Arianos, 373 41. 

139 Socrates says that the eastern bishops went back to Philippopolis to hold 
their separate meetings. Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 20. Athanasius agrees with him 
that there were seventy-six of them. Epistolae, XLVI. 

140 On these men vide supra, pp. 471, 474. 

141 Supra, Pp. 491, 492, 495. 

142 Protogenes, the local bishop, had taken sides with the western contingent. 
Gaudentius, bishop of Naisi (Nisch) in Dacia, had tried to defend Paul. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 519 


everywhere not to admit these persons to communion nor 
to write to them nor to receive letters from them. .. . 

12 On the other hand, the party of Hosius *** assembled 
and acquitted Athanasius, on the ground that he had been 
unjustifiably attacked by the assembly at Tyre, and Mar- 
cellus, because he declared he did not believe as they 
accused him of believing, and Asclepas, . . . and Lucius. 
. . . And they wrote to their parishes ** to regard these 
men as their bishops and to expect their arrival and not 
to look upon Gregory in Alexandria nor Basil in Ancyra nor 
Quintianus in Gaza as bishops nor to have any communion 
with them nor even to consider them Christians. And they 
deposed from the bishopric Theodore, the Thracian, and 
Narcissus, bishop of Irenopolis, and Acacius of Caesarea in 
Palestine, and Menophantus of Ephesus and Ursacius of 
Singidunum in Moesia, and Valens of Mursae in Pannonia, 
and George of Laodicea, even though he was not at this 
council with the bishops of the East. [These were all de- 
posed as Arians, who separate the Son from the substance 
of the Father, and letters were sent to all bishops to inform 
them of the sentence of condemnation.| . . . And they also 
adopted another confession of faith, longer than that of 
Nicaea, but preserving the same meaning and not differing 
much from it in words. Then Hosius and Protogenes, who 
presided over the western bishops at Sardica, fearing, 
probably, that they might be thought to have disparaged 
the confession of the Council of Nicaea, wrote to Julius and 
declared that they held the latter to be binding but that for 
the sake of clarity they had expressed the same meaning 
more at length.** ... This done, both parties broke up 
their assemblies and every man returned to his home. 


143 Hosius was evidently the most venerated person at the council. Athan- 
asius says that he was the father of the bishops there (Historia Arianorum, 15), 
and again that “the great Hosius ” presided at the sessions. Jbid., 16. 

144 On the use of this word in the sense of the modern “‘ diocese,” vide supra, 


Pp. 279, . 99. he 
145 On the draft of this creed and the letter to Julius vide supra, p. 498. 


520 THE SEE OF PETER 


Council of Sardica, Canons, III, IV, V, X. Text. C. J. 
Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, I, Pt. Il, 762 sqq. 


Canon III *** 


The bishop Hosius said: “‘ This provision also must be 
added, that no bishop may go from his own province into 
another province where there are bishops, unless he be in- 
vited by his NS so that we may not seem to close the 
gates of charity.’ 

And this rule likewise eel be observed, that if in any 
province one bishop has a dispute with a protien and fellow 
bishop, neither one of them shall summon bishops from an- 
other province as judges. But if any bishop has had sen- 
tence passed against him in any instance and believes that 
he is not guilty but that his cause is right, so that the 
judgment should be given again, if it seem good to your 
charity, let us honor the memory of Peter, the apostle, and 
let the men who judged him write to Julius, bishop of Rome, 
that if he think best he may have the case reviewed by the 
bishops of the neighboring provinces and he may constitute 
them as judges. And if it cannot be shown that the case is 
such as to warrant a reversal of sentence, the previous judg- 
ment shall not be altered but shall remain in force.” ** 


Canon IV 


The bishop Gaudentius said: “If it please you, there 
Shall be added to the sincere and charitable ordinance which 


146 One hundred and twenty-one bishops finally signed these canons. They 
included men from Spain, Gaul, Italy, Africa, Sardinia, Pannonia, Moesia and 
both Dacias. See the notes on the signatures in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 
Vol. IV, pp. 147-148. 

147 J.e,, bishops are not forbidden to perform friendly services for others out- 
side their own provinces, if they are explicitly invited to do so. 

148 This canon was included by Gratian in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Causa 
VI, quaest. iv, can. 7. He gives it in the Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus, which 
varies slightly from the Greek in the last clauses: “ and if he [the Roman bishop] 
decide that judgment should be rendered again, let it be so rendered and let him 
name the judges. But if he find that the case is such that the trial should not 
be repeated, the sentence shall be confirmed.” 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 521 


you have enacted a provision that if any bishop be deposed 
by the judgment of the bishops in his vicinity and claim 
another opportunity for defense, no other man shall be 
installed in his see until the bishop of Rome has judged and 
rendered decision in the matter.” *® 


Canon V 


The bishop Hosius said: “It is resolved that if any 
bishop be accused and the bishops of his neighborhood in 
assembly remove him from his rank and if he appeal to and 
take refuge with the blessed bishop of the church of Rome 
and request him to hear him and if the bishop of Rome 
find it just that the case should be reviewed, he may write 
to those bishops who live in adjoining provinces to investi- 
gate the whole matter diligently and accurately and pass 
sentence upon it.in accordance with their conviction of the 
truth. And if any one ask that his case be heard a second 
time and if, at his request, the Roman bishop be willing to 
send priests from his own staff, it shall be within the bishop’s 
powers to send such priests as he may deem expedient and 
right, to sit as judges with the bishops and to possess the 
authority of the bishop who sent them; and this is to be 
ordained. But if the bishop of Rome consider the other — 
bishops sufficient for the examination and decision of the 
case, he shall act as in his most prudent judgment he 
sees best.” The bishops answered: “ The resolution is 
approved.” *”° 


149 The purpose of this canon is obviously to prohibit action like that of the 
eastern bishops, who ordained Gregory of Cappadocia as bishop of Alexandria, 
while Athanasius was appealing to Julius against their sentence of deposition. 

150 Jt will be realized that Canon V adds to the provisions for an appeal to 
the pope contained in Canon III, another by which the condemned bishop, as 
well as his judges, may make the appeal and the pope may at his discretion send 
legates to represent him on the second tribunal. The Synod of Sardica might at a 
stretch consider itself an appellate court under this heading, as well as under 
the first, for both Athanasius and his eastern judges had asked Julius for a new 
trial and he had approved of the meeting at Sardica, although he had not sum- 
moned it. That the synod did so consider itself seems indicated by a passage in 
the encyclical of the eastern party, infra, p. 526. 


522 THE SEE OF PETER 


[Canons VIII and IX and the first part of X contain 
prohibitions against the frequenting of the imperial court 
by bishops aspiring for benefits of one kind or another. 
Bishops are forbidden to appear at all at court, unless 
brought by summons from the emperor or by some urgent 
errand of charity. Even such errands are, as far as possible, 
to be transacted through the medium of the metropolitan 
bishop resident at the capital. | 


Canon X 


The bishop Hosius said: “.. . . And those who come to 
Rome, as I have said, shall commit to our beloved brother 
and fellow bishop, Julius, the petitions which they have to 
present, that he may first scrutinize them to see that none 
of them are improper and then may give them his patronage 
and care and forward them to the court.” All the bishops 
answered that they agreed and that the measure was 
suitable. 


The Eastern Bishops at Sardica, Encyclical Letter, contained 
in Hilary, Fragmenta Historica, Series A, IV. Text. 
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 
49-78. 


We, the bishops from divers provinces of the East, 
namely, the province of the Thebaid, the province of Pales- 
tine, Arabia, Phoenicia, Syria, . . .*°* and the islands of the 
Cyclades, Lydia, Asia, Europe, the Hellespont, Thrace, and 
Emimontus, who have met and held a council in the city of 
Sardica, to Gregory, bishop of Alexandria, the bishop of 
Nicomedia, the bishop of Carthage, the bishop of Campania, 

. .” and to all our fellow bishops throughout the world 

151 The names of twelve provinces in Asia Minor and eastward are here 

omitted. 


152 The names or titles of eleven bishops are omitted. Julius is not in- 
cluded. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 523 


and to the priests and deacons and all who under heaven 
are members of the holy catholic Church, greeting forever 
in the Lord. 

[A long rehearsal of the heretical tenets of Marcellus, 
the crimes of Athanasius and the events of the trial at 
Tyre. | 

10 Then afterwards, Athanasius wandered through vari- 
ous parts of the world, seducing persons and by his specious 
reasoning and baleful flattery deceiving innocent bishops 
who did not know of his crimes, even some Egyptians who 
were ignorant of his behavior, and by begging letters from 
all of them he disturbed peaceful churches, or else he himself 
made fresh forgeries for his own convenience. All this, 
however, availed nothing against the judgment long before 
solemnly delivered by holy and illustrious bishops. For the 
recommendation of persons who had not been judges at the 
council and had never received the sentence of the council 
and are known not to have been there when the aforesaid 
Athanasius was heard could be of no value or assistance 
to him. At length, when he realized that this was all in 
vain, he went to Julius at Rome and to some of the bishops 
of his party in Italy and imposed upon them by false letters 
and was too readily admitted by them to communion. 
Thenceforward, they began to defend not so much him as 
their own conduct, because they had believed and communed 
with him too hastily. For even if his letters had come from 
somebody, they did not come from men who either had been 
his judges or had attended the council. And even if they 
were written by somebody, the bishops never should have 
hastily believed him, pleading as he was in his own behalf. 
But all credit was refused to the judges who had righteously 
passed sentence on him. 

[Asclepas, Paul and Lucius have joined Athanasius and 
Marcellus at Rome.] ... They did not defend themselves 
in the places where they had sinned nor in that vicinity nor 


524 THE SEE OF PETER 


where their accusers were, but went among strangers, who 
lived far from their country and were unacquainted with the 
truth of what had occurred, and they endeavored to undo 
a just sentence by referring their conduct to men who knew 
nothing whatever about them. It was ashrewd course. For 
they were aware that many of their judges and accusers and 
witnesses were dead, so they thought that in spite of so 
many serious condemnations in the past they could obtain 
a new trial. And they wanted to plead their case before us, 
who have neither extenuated nor judged them. For the men 
who once judged them have now departed to the Lord. 

12 They wished to compel the eastern bishops to come 
to them, not as judges but as defendants, not as defendants 
but as culprits, and that at a time when their own defense 
was worthless, although in the past they could put up no 
defense at all when their accusers confuted them face to 
face. They planned to introduce a new law, that eastern 
bishops should be tried by western bishops. And they main- 
tained that the judgment of the Church could be delivered 
by men who were distressed not so much over them as over 
their own conduct... . 

14 Thus Athanasius, travelling into Italy and Gaul, 
arranged a trial for himself, several of his accusers, witnesses 
and judges being dead, and he believed that he could pro- 
cure a second hearing, because the long passage of time was 
dimming the memory of his outrages. And Julius, bishop 
of the city of Rome, Maximin and Hosius and many others 
of their party gave him their iniquitous support and secured 
from the benevolent emperor the convocation of a council 
at Sardica. We ourselves went to Sardica at the emperor’s 
letter of summons. And when we arrived there, we dis- 
covered Athanasius, Marcellus and all those evildoers, who 
had been excommunicated by sentence of the council and 
deservedly condemned every man for his crimes, sitting in 
the midst of the church with Hosius and Protogenes and 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 525 


conversing with them and — what was worse, — celebrating 
the divine mysteries. .. . 

15 But we, who uphold the discipline of the rule of the 
Church and desire to give a little aid to the unfortunate,’ 
bade the adherents of Protogenes and Hosius expel the con- 
demned men from their company and not hold communion 
with sinners, but join with us and listen to the sentence that 
had been passed by our fathers against them aforetime. For 
the book of Marcellus did not require an accusation and he 
made himself out openly a heretic. And we urged them to 
put no trust in these men’s false assertions, for they were 
each one concealing his own depravity, in order to regain 
his office of bishop. But they resented our words, on what 
ground we do not know. And they would not withdraw 
from communion with these men but approved the sect of 
the heretic Marcellus and set the criminal Athanasius and 
the other transgressors above the faith and peace of the 
Church. 

16 On hearing and seeing this, we eighty bishops, who 
had come by long journeying and much hardship to Sardica 
from divers remote provinces, in order to establish the peace 
of the Church, could not bear it without tears. For it was 
not a light matter that they absolutely refused to exclude 
from their number men whom our fathers had justly con- 
demned in the past for their offenses. We considered it 
wicked to commune with them nor would we share the Lord’s 
holy sacraments with profane persons, for we guard and 
keep the rule of ecclesiastical discipline. .. . 

17 However, we again and again besought them not to 
shatter what had been firmly established, nor to overturn 
the law, nor to break the divine mandates, nor to throw 
everything into confusion, nor to make the Church’s tradi- 
tion of no effect in even a small particular, nor to introduce 


158 The text is obscure. If the rendering here is correct, the eastern bishops 
seem to mean that they considered the adherents of Protogenes and Hosius as 
unfortunates, who needed aid. 


526 THE SEE OF PETER 


a new sect, nor to set men from the West in any way above 
the bishops of the East and above the holy councils. .. . 
But . . . they proposed to erect a court of so great author- 
ity that they might call themselves judges of the judges and 
might reverse, if that is allowable, the verdict of them who 
are now with God... . 

18 [The eastern bishops have suggested sending com- 
missioners from both sides to gather evidence on Athanasius 
in Egypt, whichever side is proved thereby to have been 
in error to accept its defeat without making a complaint “ to 
emperor or council or any bishop.” But the Westerners 
have refused. Meanwhile all kinds of miscreants are pour- 
ing into Sardica, and Hosius and Protogenes are taking them 
into their “ conventicle.”’| We have refused absolutely to 
commune with them until they expel the men whom we 
have condemned and pay due respect to the council of the 
East. [Since then, the western bishops have tried to throw 
the blame of the schism on the eastern party but on them- 
Selves it certainly belongs. The eastern bishops condemn 
again Athanasius, Marcellus and their associates. | 

26... So they attempted to introduce this novelty, 
abhorrent to the ancient practice of the Church, that what- 
ever eastern bishops chance to decree in council may be 
reversed by western bishops and, similarly, whatever the 
bishops of the West ordain may be annulled by those of the 
East. But this notion they derived from their own depraved 
minds. The proceedings of our ancestors show that the 
decrees of every council that is justly and legally conducted 
should be approved. For the council that was held in the 
city of Rome in the days of the heretics Novatus and Sabel- 
lius and Valentine ** was confirmed by the eastern church 
and, again, the decision of the East in the time of Paul of 
Samosata was ratified by everyone... . 


154 Note the anachronism. On the periods of these men vide supra, pp. 258, 
305, 382. 


= 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 527 


27... Wherefore, our whole council has condemned 
Julius of the city of Rome, Hosius and Protogenes and 
Gaudentius and Maximin of Trier, in accordance with 
ancient law, . . . Julius, of the city of Rome, as the chief 
and leader of evildoers, because he was the first to open the 
door of communion to condemned criminals and led the 
way for others to overthrow the divine laws and defended 
Athanasius presumptuously and audaciously, without know- 
ing either the man’s witnesses or his accusers. ... [End 
with a creed and the signatures of seventy-three bishops. | 


Council of Sardica, Letter to Julius of Rome, contained in 
Hilary, Fragmenta Historica, Series B, II, 2-4. Text. 
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 
126-139.” 


1 (Address wanting.) What we have always believed 
that we now know, for experience is proving and confirming 
for each of us what he has heard with his ears. It is true 
what the Apostle Paul, the most blessed teacher of the Gen- 
tiles, said of himself: ‘‘ Do ye seek a proof of him who 
speaks in me, even Christ? ”*** For, since the Lord Christ 
dwelt in him, there could be no doubt that the Spirit spoke 
through his soul and animated the instrument of his body. — 
And thus you, dearly beloved brother, though distant in 
body, have been with us in unison of mind and will. The 
reason for your absence was both honorable and imperative, 
that the schismatic wolves might not rob and plunder by 
stealth nor the heretical dogs bark wildly in rabid fury 
nor the very serpent, the devil, discharge his blasphemous 
venom. So it seems to us right and altogether fitting that 

155 The authenticity of this letter has been sometimes questioned. See the 
discussion in C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, Vol. I, Pt. II, p. 810, n. 2. It, 
like the preceding, was undoubtedly written originally in Greek. We have only 


the Latin translations. 
156 JT Corinthians, XIII, 3. 


528 THE SEE OF PETER 


the priests of the Lord from each and every province should 
report to their head, that is, to the See of Peter, the 
apostle.*”’ 

2 But inasmuch as our written reports contain every 
event and transaction and resolution of ours and as the 
voices of our dear brothers and fellow priests, Archydamus 
and Philoxenus, and of our dear son Leo, the deacon,*”* can 
describe them to you accurately and faithfully, it seems 
almost superfluous to rehearse these same things in this 
letter. It has been clear to everyone that those who came 
here from the East, who call themselves bishops, although 
some of their leaders have impious minds, tainted by the 
baleful poison of the heresy of Arius, have long been raising 
cowardly objections and out of distrust refusing to appear 
for trial and abjuring communion with you and us, although 
our communion is blameless, for we have believed in the 
testimony of more than eighty bishops together as to the 
innocence of Athanasius.” But when these others were 
summoned by your priests and your letter to the council 
which was to be held at Rome, they would not come. And 
it was exceedingly unjust for them to condemn Marcellus 
and Athanasius and to deny them fellowship in the face of 
the testimony of so many bishops. | 

3 There were three subjects for us to discuss. For our 
devout emperors themselves gave us permission to debate 
thoroughly everything under. dispute and first of all, the 
holy faith and sound truth, which are being assailed. . . . 
[We have examined the charges brought by the eastern 
bishops against the deposed men and also the charges and 


157 The Latin of this letter is unusually crabbed and clumsy. The text of the 
_ foregoing sentence runs as follows: “ Hoc enim optimum et valde congruentissimum 
esse videbitur, si ad caput, id est ad Petri apostoli sedem, de singulis quibusque 
provinciis Domini referant sacerdotes.” 

158 These are the three delegates whom Julius sent to Sardica to represent 
him. It will be noticed that Philoxenus was one of the two priests who had earlier 
gone to Antioch with the summons to Rome. Supra, p. 503. 

159 Julius evidently sent to Sardica the letter from the Egyptian bishops, 
vindicating Athanasius, which had previously come to him. Supra, p. 503. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 529 


complaints against the eastern bishops themselves. Ursacius 
and Valens are especially culpable.| When you read our 
report to the most blessed Augusti, you will easily see that 
we have covered everything to the best of our ability. And, 
not to make the narrative long and tedious, we have in- 
dicated who were the perpetrators and what were their 
acts. 

5 You, then, in your excellent wisdom, should provide 
that our brethren in Sicily, Sardinia and Italy may learn by 
a communication from you “* what has been done and de- 
creed, that they may not accept in ignorance letters of com- 
munion or certificates from men who have been degraded 
by a just verdict. Let Marcellus, Athanasius and Asclepas 
also continue in communion with us, for no one could hold 
against them their unrighteous trial nor the flight and 
cowardly behavior of the men who have refused to come to 
trial before the congregation of us bishops who have as- 
sembled here. Everything else, as we have said, your sym- 
pathy will learn from the full descriptions of the brethren 
whom you sent to us in your earnestness and love. We have 
appended here the names of those whom we have deposed 
for their crimes, that your high excellency may know who 
are to be debarred from communion. Do you, as we have 
already requested, deign to warn by letter all our brethren 
and fellow bishops not to receive their certificates, that is, 
their letters of communion... . 

[The names of the excommunicated and, following them, 
of fifty-nine signatory bishops, headed by “‘ Hosius, the Cor- 
dovan, from Spain.”’ | 

160 This seems to contemplate that Julius should write only to the churches 


within his metropolitan jurisdiction. Supra, p. 485, n. 92. Compare this with the 
corresponding request made by the Council of Arles, supra, p. 481. 


530 THE SEE OF PETER 


3. THE TRIUMPH OF ROME 


Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 23. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 249-256. 


[Constans, on hearing what had happened at Sardica, 
sent word to his brother Constantius to restore Athanasius 
to his see on pain of war. Constantius took counsel with 
his own bishops, who said it was better to restore Athanasius 
than to have civil war. Constantius then summoned Atha- 
nasius in three letters to return.] Athanasius received these 
letters in Aquileia, where he was stopping on his return from 
Sardica, and hurried straightway to Rome. And he showed 
the letters to the bishop Julius and brought great joy to the 
church of the Romans. For they thought that the emperor 
of the East was approving of their faith, because he was 
summoning Athanasius to him. 

And Julius sent the following letter concerning Athana- 
sius to the clergy and people of Alexandria. 

“¢ Julius, the bishop, to his beloved brethren, the priests 
and deacons and people of Alexandria, greeting in the 
Lord.*” 

I congratulate you, brethren beloved, because you behold 
now before your eyes the fruit of your faith. For, indeed, 
anyone may see that this has appeared in the person of 
Athanasius, my brother and fellow bishop, whom God is 
giving back to you for the purity of his own life and your 
prayers. ... There is no need that I should write to you 
at length, for your own faith has anticipated all that I might 
have said to you and, by the grace of Christ, the one com- 
mon desire of all your prayers has been fulfilled. Therefore, 

161 Athanasius, in his Apologia, 51, says: “‘ When I received these letters, I 
went to Rome, to bid farewell to the church and the bishop.” He seems, however, 
to have gone first to see Constans. The meeting of eastern and western bishops 
at Milan is omitted from these accounts. Supra, p. 500 and n. 112. 

162 This letter is also given by Athanasius, Apologia, 52-53. The opening 


salutation there is simply, ‘‘ Julius, to the priests and deacons and people of 
Alexandria.” 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 531 


I congratulate you and again I repeat it, because you have 
kept your souls invincible in the faith. And my brother 
Athanasius I congratulate no less, because, although he has 
suffered much hardship, he has never for an hour forgotten 
your love and your longing for him. Although he has seemed 
for a time divided from you in the body, still in the spirit 
he has always lived as if present in your company. And I, 
beloved, believe that all the trials which he has undergone 
have not been inglorious. For both your own and his faith 
have become known and admired by everyone. . . 

Receive, therefore, beloved brethren, with all glory to 
God and rejoicing, your bishop Athanasius and those who 
have been his comrades in his tribulations. And be glad for 
the satisfaction of your prayers, you who by your saving 
letters have furnished meat and drink to your shepherd, 
who, so to speak, has hungered and thirsted for your 
devotion. ... 

It is right to close my letter with a prayer. May AIl- 
mighty God and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, — 
grant you his grace forever in recompense for your mar- 
vellous faith, which you displayed in glorious testimony for 
your bishop, that for you and those who come after you, 
here and hereafter, the better things may abide which eye 
hath not seen nor ear heard nor have they entered into the 
heart of man, which God hath prepared for them who love 
him, through our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom to God 
Almighty be glory forever and ever. Amen. I bid you, 
beloved brethren, farewell.” 


Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos, 58. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 353-354. 


[Through the influence of Julius and the emperor Con- 
stans, Athanasius returned in safety to his church at Alex- 
andria.| On learning this, Ursacius and Valens condemned 


532 THE SEE OF PETER 


themselves for their past behavior and came to Rome and 
made their confession contritely and entreated pardon 
and wrote to Julius, the bishop of old Rome, and to me 
[Athanasius] as follows. The copies of their letters were 
sent to me by Paulinus, bishop of Trier." 


Ursacius and Valens, Confession, contained in Hilary, 
Fragmenta Historica, Series B, II, 6, 8. Text. Corpus 
Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 143-145. 


A copy of the letter which, after the eastern bishops 
[at Jerusalem]|*** had declared that Athanasius was not 
guilty, Valens wrote in the city of Rome with his own a 
and to which Ursacius added his signature. 

“Ursacius and Valens to their lord, the most blessed 
pope Julius. ! 

Whereas it is well known that we have in time past 
brought many heinous charges by letter against the name 
of Bishop Athanasius, and whereas when we were summoned 
to an assembly by letters from your holiness, we presented 
no ground for the accusations we had made, we do now 
confess before your holiness, in the presence of all the priests, 
our brethren, that all the reports that have in the past come 
to your ears regarding the aforesaid Athanasius are false- 
hoods of our own fabrication and devoid of all foundation, 
and that we, therefore, eagerly desire to have communion 
with the aforesaid Athanasius, especially now that your 
holiness with your characteristic clemency has seen fit to 
pardon our wrongdoing. We declare also that if ever the 
eastern bishops or Athanasius himself attempts in vengeance 
to bring us to trial, we will not go to them without your 
knowledge. And with this our hand with which we have 


163 Athanasius’ text of the following letters is translated from the Latin into 
Greek. Our text is taken from the original Latin, as found in Hilary’s collection 
of Fragmenta. 

164 Supra, p. 501. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 533 


written, we do affirm that we have anathematized now and 
forever the heretic Arius and his satellites, who say: ‘‘ There 
was a time when the Son was not,” and who say that the 
Son was created out of nothing and who deny that the Son 
of God existed before all ages, as also we have stated in our 
former declaration which we presented at Milan. And we 
repeat that we have, as we said, condemned the heresy of 
Arius and its authors to eternity.” 

Then, in the hand of Ursacius: “I, Bishop Ursacius, 
have signed this our confession.” . . 

‘“‘ Ursacius and Valens to their lord and brother, Atha- 
nasius. 

An opportunity has arisen of sending to you through our 
brother and fellow priest, Moyses, who is going to your 
charity, brother beloved. Through him we salute you most 
heartily from Aquileia and hope that you are in good health 
and will read our letter. You will give us a pledge of con- 
fidence also, if you will return us some reply in writing. For 
by this letter we notify you that we are at peace with you 
and in communion with the Church. The mercy of God 
preserve you, brother.” ** 


Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 29. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 725. 


[After an interval of acquiescence and the death of 
Constans, the Arians began agitation again.] First of all, 
they persuaded Ursacius and Valens to change once more 
and like dogs to return to their vomit and like swine to 
wallow again in the former mire of their impiety. So 
they invented a reason for their previous repentance, that 
they had done it in dread of the godfearing Constans. . . . 
But not a soldier was present [at their recantation in Rome], 


165 To appreciate the prestige of Julius at this time, the reader should mark 
the contrast in tone between these two letters, the humble, abject apology to him, 
the perfunctory, almost nonchalant note to the injured bishop of Alexandria. 


534 THE SEE OF PETER 


no palatine nor notary had been sent, as they are now, nor 
was the emperor himself there nor had they been summoned 
by any one, when they indited their confession. But they 
went voluntarily to Rome, of their own accord, and in the 
church, where there was no fear from without and the only 
fear was of God and every man had freedom of choice, they 
spontaneously repented and wrote their confession. 


LIBERIUS 


(352-366) | 

We have already drawn attention to the fact that Constantine, 
after announcing his decision to elevate Christianity to the level 
of a legitimate cult, approved by the State, had assumed at once, 
ex officio, as a matter of course, the position of chief arbiter in 
the conduct of the Christian organization and had treated its 
officials, the bishops, as members of a new branch of his state 
department of religions, accountable from now on to him as well 
as to God. It was not so much, indeed, that the Church itself 
changed character or became secularized, although with Con- 
stantine’s gifts it did begin a rapid accumulation of lands and 
wealth, as that the government now ranged itself around and be- 
hind the Church and acted as a strong arm for enforcing the poli- 
cies of its leaders. In addition, the emperor took on himself the 
functions of supreme ecclesiastical executive and judge, vigorously 
applying the Church’s laws in the way that seemed best to him and 
furnishing willy-nilly to the scattered episcopate the political im- 
petus and unifying energy which until now it had mostly lacked, 
in spite of earlier, ambitious efforts on the part of the Roman See 
to set up a centralised administration. Eusebius undoubtedly 
had something of this change in mind when he called Constantine 
a ‘general bishop.” **® Constans, his father’s successor in the 
countries of Europe and West Africa, mixed far less in church 
business, preferring that the bishops should manage alone all 
ordinary religious concerns and work out their dogmatic disputes 
without his assistance. But at a time of crisis, an unusual enter- 

166 Supra, p. 476. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 536 


prise; such as a general council, might be instigated by him and 
must have his sanction before it could meet or hold free discussion. 
In the heresy-ridden provinces of Africa, he sent troops against 
the Donatists. And when it appeared that the integrity of the 
orthodox communion was menaced by flagrant injustice in the 
East, he threatened his brother’s dominions with invasion if they 
persisted in violating the plain rules of ecclesiastical tradition. 
When he died, the church of the West had known only the ad- 
vantages of a state connection, the strength, the wealth and the 
prestige to be derived from it. 

Under Constantius, however, the brother of Constans and the 
last surviving son of Constantine, the West was to learn what 
could happen under such a system when an emperor professed 
an alien brand of Christianity and felt called upon to vindicate 
it in high places. Constantius, as we have said, had been a 
convinced Arian since the first years of his reign in the East. 
The superior might of his brother Constans had compelled him 
to accept, for the time being, the reversal of the sentence of his 
bishops against Athanasius, the eastern personification of Nicene 
orthodoxy, and to permit, even to urge Athanasius to return to 
Alexandria. But one of the first uses that he made of his con- 
quest of Gaul, after Magnentius’ death, was to require its church 
to ratify the verdict of the Council of Tyre by which Athanasius 
had been first deposed.*® 

The winter of 353-354 he spent at Arles and sent out summons 
to the Gallic bishops to attend him there. The Pannonian Valens, 
who had so promptly made his peace with the eastern Eusebians, 
was conspicuous in his train. The bishops of Trier, Cdlogne and 
Lyons, who had been employed by Julius in his negotiations with 
the Eusebians and who would have understood the gravity of the 
situation now, were either dead or too infirm to appear. The mass 
of their colleagues knew little or nothing of the deeper dogmatic 
issues that underlay the specific proposition made to them. 
Hilary of Poitiers, an eager student of whatever church literature 
could be found in his province, had never heard the creed of 
Nicaea before that winter. The older, simpler baptismal for- 


167 Supra, p. 475. 


536 THE SEE OF PETER 


mulas still sufficed for the needs of the western provincial 
churches. Under such circumstances, these unsophisticated prel- 
ates were told of an enigmatical and obnoxious troublemaker, 
whom their emperor, the son of the great Constantine, asked 
them to condemn, as their eastern brethren apparently had 
already done. What Athanasius stood for was quite unintelligible. 
Why should they not testify to their loyalty to Constantius and 
their desire for peace in all the churches by signifying their dis- 
approbation of discord? 

At Rome, however, the new bishop Liberius was fully awake 
to the larger implications of the question at stake. During his 
first year of office, 352-353, while Constantius’ attention was still 
absorbed by his campaign against Magnentius, Liberius had re- 
ceived certain test letters from the eastern bishops, inquiring 
whether, in view of the altered situation, he would now revoke 
the acts of his predecessor, Julius, and assent to their condemna- 
tion of Athanasius. But he was nobly resolved to be neither be- 
guiled nor intimidated. He read the letters to a synod of his 
local bishops and wrote in reply that he could not accept accusa- 
tions that had since been so thoroughly disproved. Soon after- 
ward, he welcomed a deputation of Egyptian bishops who brought 
copies of a formal appeal of the Egyptian episcopate against any 
further persecution of their metropolitan. Late in the year, as 
reports began to come in of the doings in Gaul, he selected two 
Italians, Vincent, bishop of Capua, who as a priest had been at 
Nicaea, and one Marcellus of Campania, to carry a letter to 
Constantius, asking him to call a general council of the Church 
at some point in Italy and allow it to decide all religious problems 
that still lay in dispute. A council was the best possible approach 
to a genuine organ of ecclesiastical opinion and no emperor had 
as yet refused to summon one upon request. But when Vincent 
and Marcellus arrived at Arles, they found that the wishes of the 
Roman bishop counted for nothing in the general flood of en- 
thusiasm for the son of Constantine and harmony. They were 
themselves before long swept off their feet and signed the docu- 
ment confirming Athanasius’ excommunication. In vain, they 
feebly stipulated that the Easterners present should join the West 


THE RISE OF THE SEE Sau. 


in condemning Arius. No one heeded them. Of all the bishops 
who came together that year, only Paulinus, the successor of 
Maximin of Trier, who had perhaps himself known Athanasius 
during his exile, persisted in refusal to disown him and was sent 
by Constantius into banishment. 

Liberius at Rome heard of the defalcation of his envoys but 
received no answer from his letter to the emperor. Instead, an 
imperial proclamation was posted up in the city in which he was 
named as an obstinate and ambitious promoter of dissension. 
He perceived that the turn of himself and Italy would not be long 
delayed and spent the interval in anxious endeavors to fortify his 
clergy to meet the trial that impended.1** To Hosius of Cordova 
he wrote, describing his disappointment at the lapse of Vincent 
and Marcellus and his own solemn determination to die rather 
than prove traitor. Finally, in the spring of 355, as Constantius 
moved eastward and established himself at Milan and it was 
clear that Italy’s day of reckoning had arrived, Liberius sent a 
second letter to the emperor, explaining in moving terms his own 
position and the obligation that rested on him to guard unstained 
the faith of the apostles that had passed down through the long 
line of his predecessors and pleading again for a council to uphold - 
the doctrine approved at Nicaea in the presence of Constantius’ 
father “of holy memory.” He picked his messengers this time 
with special care, Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, who had 
himself offered to expostulate with the emperor, a priest, Pan- 
cratius, and a deacon, Hilary, men who, he believed, might be 
trusted to resist both blandishments and threats. Events proved 
that he chose well. He wrote also three letters to Eusebius, 
bishop of Vercellae in Piedmont, asking that he would stand 
beside them when they came into the imperial presence. 

Soon after their arrival in Milan, the bishops of all Italy 
were convened there by Constantius’ order to act upon the state 
of the Church. This was not, however, the general council for 
which Liberius had asked, that was to meet without constraint, 
away from the seat of government,**”® but a synod of Italians only, 


167a We possess a sentence from his letter to the bishop of Spoleto. “TI trust 
that Vincent’s act will not deter you from your good resolution, dearest brother.” 
Hilary, Fragmenta Historica, Series B, V1, 3-4. 

167b Infra, p. 570. 


538 THE SEE OF PETER 


collected uneasily in the chancel of a church close to the palace. 
Eusebius himself was slow to appear and special envoys were sent 
by the synod and the emperor to summon him to join in the 
movement for unity and ecclesiastical discipline against “ the 
sacrilegious Athanasius.” *** The Roman delegates also wrote, 
begging him to come as the blessed apostles did to destroy Simon 
Magus. But for ten days after his arrival in Milan he and the 
Romans were excluded from the assembly. When finally they 
were admitted, they proposed that every bishop present sign, 
first of all, the creed of Nicaea as a safeguard against heresy. 
But Valens snatched up the paper: on which the creed was in- 
scribed, the discussion grew stormy and the laity gathered in the 
church nave cried out against the Arians. At length, a proclama- 
tion from the emperor transferred the place of meeting from the 
church to a hall inside the palace. There Constantius himself, 
with his hand on his sword, sternly tendered them all their choice 
between signing the condemnation of Athanasius and exile. To 
their pleas on behalf of the canons he retorted that they should 
take his will for a canon, as the Syrian bishops did, and refused 
to listen to their protest against a government that overthrew the 
rules of the Church. One by one they capitulated, as the Gauls 
had done, persuading themselves, perhaps, that they were merely 
consenting to the removal of a perennial source of difficulties 
and doing nothing that impaired their own orthodoxy. Only 
a few, including Lucifer, Eusebius and Dionysius of Milan, de- 
nounced to the emperor’s face the injustice of condemning an ab- 
sent bishop on the bare word of an accuser, even though that ac- 
cuser were the emperor himself. These men were dispatched 
instantly into exile and one Auxentius, a Cappadocian priest in 
Constantius’ retinue, ignorant of Latin,**® was brought forward 
and ordained bishop of Milan in Dionysius’ place.*” 


168 Letters of the Council of Milan and of Constantius to Eusebius of Ver- 
cellae. J. Harduin, Acta Conciliorum et Epistolae Decretales (12 vols., Paris, 
1714-1715), Vol. I, pp. 697-700. 

169 Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 175. 

170 Maximus, bishop of Naples, died in exile. Rufinianus, another Italian 
bishop, was compelled by the Arian Epictetus to run before his chariot until he 
burst a blood vessel and fell dead. Drops of his blood were used afterwards to 
sprinkle persons possessed by devils. Faustini et Marcellini Preces, 26. Hilary, 
the Roman deacon, was scourged before he was exiled, as an extra penalty for 
carrying Liberius’ letter. Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 41. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 539 


Thus the episcopate of Italy was prevailed upon to forsake 
its old comrade in arms in Egypt. There still remained the head 
of that episcopate, the bishop of the Apostolic See, whose repre- 
sentatives had all preferred banishment to betrayal of the man 
or the cause of which he was the emblem. When the news of 
their fate reached Liberius, he sent them an excited letter of 
praise, regretting only that he had not been before them in the 
glory of confession and asking their prayers that the Lord might 
yet deign to make him their equal. What was Constantius to do 
with this arch-rebel? The position of the See of Rome, its hold 
upon the people of the city and of Italy, was such by this time 
that even the emperor realized he must act circumspectly and 
avoid provoking a riot that might assume alarming proportions. 
The selections which we give below recount the various vain 
attempts of imperial officers to bribe, cajole and terrify Liberius 
and the final furtive kidnapping of him by night that the populace 
might not be aroused. We have also a memorandum of an inter- 
view that is said to have taken place between Constantius and 
Liberius upon the latter’s appearance in Milan, with courage and 
spirit still unshaken. The point to which he held fast as regarded 
Athanasius was the judicial one, that it was impossible without a 
proper trial to condemn a man who had once been acquitted on 
conclusive evidence and that if Constantius wished to bring fresh 
accusations, a fresh court must be constituted to hear and investi- 
gate them. Another general council, he repeated, would be the 
agency best fitted to handle the matter. Such a council was also 
needed to consult on the state of the faith and maintain all Chris- 
tians in fidelity to the Fathers of Nicaea, and the exiled bishops 
should be permitted to return and take part in it. Liberius’ plea 
was, in short, for a revival of the policy of Constans. The outcome 
was his own departure into exile, to the town of Beroea in Thrace, 
to reside under the spiritual supervision of Demophilus, the local 
bishop, a pronounced Arian. A deacon from Rome, named 
Damasus, went part of the way with him but turned back home 
again before reaching the destination. 

At Rome, the news of Liberius’ brave stand against Con- 
stantius was received with proud exultation and the city clergy 


540 THE SEE OF PETER 


in a public assembly took oath to accept no other man as bishop 
as long as Liberius lived. Among the most vociferous in the 
demonstration were the archdeacon Felix and the deacon Da- 
masus, who was present with a description of what he had seen 
and heard. But the emperor had no intention of leaving so 
important an office untenanted nor, on the other hand, did he 
think it prudent to aggravate the people’s resentment by imposing 
upon them an uncomprehending alien, as he had done at Milan. 
The archdeacon Felix was summoned to court and offered the 
seat in the Lateran. He succumbed to the splendid bait and be- 
came Constantius’ nominee for the Roman bishopric. Epictetus, 
another of Constantius’ Arian attendants, who had previously 
been made bishop of Civita Vecchia, performed the ordination 
ceremony inside the Lateran walls for fear of a tumult if it were 
held in a church. Three other bishops, whom Athanasius calls 
‘‘ ill-favored spies,” assisted at the rite and three palace eunuchs 
represented the Christian laity." After his installation, Felix 
gradually procured the outward submission of the majority of 
the city priesthood. The government addressed an edict to him 
on the immunities of the inferior clergy.” But the lay popula- 
tion forgot neither the heroism of Liberius nor what it considered 
the apostasy of Felix. When, in 357, two years after these events, 
Constantius himself visited Rome, he was beset by noble ladies 
at the palace and by crowds in the streets and the circus asking 
for Liberius back again. To some of these petitioners he replied 
sardonically that they should have their bishop and that they 
would find him better than when they lost him. For by that 
time he knew, as they did not, that exile and homesickness and 
the assiduous labors of Demophilus had been too much for 
Liberius’ morale, that he had by now signed the condemnation 
of Athanasius and was only waiting for imperial permission to — 
return home. 

Even without Liberius, Constantius had obtained what was 
practically the unanimous consent of the active episcopate of the 
Empire to the execution of the verdict of Tyre. One more mem- 


171 Infra, p. 576. 
172 Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 2, 14. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE SAT 


ber of distinction held out, the man who represented in person 
the Fathers of Nicaea to the West as Athanasius did to the East, 
Hosius of Cordova. Immediately after the banishment of 
Liberius, he too had been called to face Constantius at Milan. 
We have no account of the interview, simply the statement that 
Hosius refused to abandon his old friend. Constantius, momen- 
tarily impressed, did not punish him but allowed him to return 
to Spain. The tenor of Hosius’ defense may be gathered from 
the letter which he wrote after his return to the emperor to 
remonstrate against the abusive and threatening communications 
that still followed him. ‘This venerable statesman, who in his 
own lifetime had seen so many varieties of relationship between 
the civil power and the Church, persecution under Maximin, close, 
paternal guardianship under Constantine, non-interfering benevo- 
lence under Constans, high-handed coercion under Constantius, 
now addressed to the monarch a plain and positive warning against 
intervention in any guise whatever in religious affairs.” In 
Hosius’ younger days, he himself had helped Constantine to com- 
pel the Church to an appearance of peace. In his old age, he pre- 
ferred to cite the example of Constans, who, at least, had forced 
no man to subscribe to anything against his will and had never 


173 That same year, 355, or early in 356, Hilary of Poitiers expressed the same 
idea more briefly in the introduction to his collection of documents intended to 
expose the evils of Arianism. “I refrain from saying that although the pro- 
foundest reverence should be paid to a king, because his kingdom is from God, 
nevertheless his judgment should not calmly be accepted in episcopal trials, for 
to Caesar the things of Caesar but to God must be rendered the things that are 
God’s.” Fragmenta Historica, Series B, I, 5. Hilary may well have seen a copy 
of Hosius’ letter, as Athanasius did who preserves it for us. Athanasius, in his 
Arian History, written during his stay in the Libyan desert between 356 and 362, 
approached the same position. “For what concern has the emperor with any 
decision of the bishops? ... When did an ordinance of the Church derive its 
force from an emperor or when was his ordinance ever recognized by the Church? 
There have been many councils held before now and many decrees passed by the 
Church but our fathers never sought the emperor’s approval for them nor did the 
emperor concern himself with church affairs.” Historia Arianorum, 52. ‘The 
argument for church independence based upon historical precedent was, however, 
certainly more vulnerable than that based upon the principles of Scripture. 
Athanasius seems to be overlooking certain episodes at Nicaea. Supra, pp. 470, 
474. The persecuted Donatists were also beginning to say: “‘ What has an emperor 
to do with the Church? ” Optatus, De Schismate, III, 3; J. C. Ayer, Source Book 
for Ancient Church History, p. 322. They may even have anticipated Hosius but 
we know little of their line of argument. Ambrose’s famous declaration of ecclesi- 
astical independence did not come until thirty years later. The third century 
Syrian Didascalia had drawn a line of difference between the spheres of civil 
and religious authority, quoting the text Hosius and Hilary used: “‘ Render unto 
Caesar,” etc. Supra, p. 157. 


542 THE SEE OF PETER 


set himself up to judge ecclesiastical doctrine. ‘ God has placed 
in your hands the Empire,” he went on. ‘To us he has entrusted 
the administration of his Church. And even as he who would 
steal the government from you opposes the ordinance of God, so 
do you fear lest by taking on yourself the conduct of the Church 
you make yourself guilty of a grave sin.” In years to come, a 
bishop of Rome would write such words as these but Liberius cer- 
tainly had not dreamed of going so far. He had asked for ec- 
clesiastical autonomy under a friendlier and less arbitrary master. 
The Spaniard was first to deny that Caesar was master of the 
Church at all, 

But although Constantius had not secured the consent of 
Hosius, he felt that he had sufficient ecclesiastical warrant to 
evict Athanasius. In 356, the church in which the latter was 
celebrating a night vigil was broken into by officers and soldiers, 
with blasts of trumpets and drawn swords. Many of the wor- 
shippers were wounded or killed in the scuffle. Athanasius him- 
self was quickly surrounded by a devoted band of monks and 
laymen, who smuggled him out into the darkness. For six years, 
he lived as a vagabond, hiding in the deserts and country places 
of Egypt. There was no longer at Rome or elsewhere anyone 
who dared offer him a refuge. The church buildings of Alexan- 
dria were handed back to the Arians and a council of about thirty 
eastern bishops at Antioch ordained one George of Cappadocia 
to fill Athanasius’ place, as seventeen years before, they had or- 
dained Gregory.** By means of Constantius, the eastern church 
had at last vindicated its right to do what it would with its own 
and the western bishops who had affronted it by reversing its 
decisions were either cowed or paying the penalty of exile. The 
year that Athanasius was driven out, a council was called at 
Béziers by Saturninus, the Arian bishop of Arles, to try two 
Gallic bishops, Hilary of Poitiers and Rhodanius of Toulouse, 
who had not come before Constantius and who were now working 
earnestly to arouse the Gallican church to a sense of what it had 
done. They were both deposed and banished. Hilary was sent 


to Asia Minor, where, however, he seized the opportunity to study 


174 Supra, p. 491. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 543 


the writings of the Greek Fathers, compose his book, De Trinitate, 
and agitate inconspicuously in Phrygia for the faith of Nicaea. 
The creed in general circulation in the East was one of those 
drawn up by the Council of Antioch in 341, a vague creed which 
omitted anything offensive to either party.’ 

In 357, the eastern cause gained its victory over Liberius.1™™ 
Early in that year, he admitted that the Council of Tyre had 
been right in condemning Athanasius and formally withdrew from 
communion with him. He also signed a creed similar to the one 
of Antioch, which avoided all reference to “ substance ” and left 
the position of the Son entirely indefinite. He then wrote to 
Constantius, to tell him of his submission and request that he 
and his fellows in exile be now allowed to go back to Italy. He 
wrote also to Lucifer and Eusebius, to inform them of the step he 
was taking, and, a few weeks later, to the bishops of the East, to 
notify them of his adherence to their communion and to beg them 
to exert their influence at court to bring about his liberation. 
But for another year, Constantius kept him lingering in suspense, 
growing more and more nervous as the months passed without 
bringing the release for which he was paying so dear a price. 
In late 357 or 358, he wrote two more letters, one to the notorious 
time-servers, Ursacius and Valens, the other to Vincent of Capua, 
the bishop whom he had once blamed so severely for failure to 
endure. These letters betray all too openly the intensity of the 
strain upon his mind. Those to the Arian bishops are painfully 
abject, explaining that, after all, peace and concord are preferable 
to martyrdom, that he has never himself defended Athanasius but 
has merely not wished to seem disloyal to Julius, that he is now 
one with them and looks to them to help restore him to the 
Roman church. The last contains the vague statement, suffi- 
cient for Italian consumption, that he has decided to struggle no 
more over Athanasius and has written to the eastern bishops, and 
asks Vincent to call an assembly of the bishops of Campania to 

175 Supra, p. 404. 

175a Jerome wrote in after years: ‘‘ Fortunatianus, an African by nationality, 
bishop of Aquileia, in the reign of Constantius, ... has an odious reputation, 
because he was the first to tempt and break the resolution of Liberius, bishop of 


Rome, on his way to exile for the faith, and to bring him to subscribe to heresy.” 
De Viris Illustribus, 97. 


544 THE SEE OF PETER 


entreat the emperor to let him return. “ If you wish me to die in 
exile, you will see; God will be judge between me and you!” 
These last words are added abruptly in a postscript, the irascible, 
suspicious outcry of a man in mental torment. 

But while Liberius was being thus fast reduced to a state of 
spiritual collapse, Constantius decided to make one more assault 
upon Hosius. In the autumn of 357, the old man, nearly a cen- 
tenarian, was ordered to come from Spain, in company with other 
western bishops, to Sirmium in Thrace, where the emperor was 
holding court and Liberius was waiting in misery. Pressure, 
more or less heavy, was applied to Hosius. He is said even to 
have been tortured, until his mind was dazed. At length, he 
yielded far enough to sign a creed, the boldest which the extreme 
wing of the Arians had yet formulated, repudiating explicitly the 
Nicene standard, forbidding future mention of “ substance,” and 
declaring in so many words that the Son was subordinate to the 
Father.** Yet, although Hosius in his weakness recanted on a 
matter of dogma, nothing could make him put his signature to 
the paper condemning Athanasius. He might perforce be counted 
hereafter among the Arians but not among Athanasius’ enemies. 
He was set free when it was plain that nothing more could be 
wrung from him and went back to Cordova to die a year or 
two later. 

Then, at last, in the summer of 358, Liberius was asked 
by the eastern bishops at Sirmium to sign one more creed, 
similar in tone to the one he had signed a year earlier and less 
heterodox than that which had been foisted upon Hosius. This 
done, he was set at liberty with a letter from the bishops to Felix 
and the Roman clergy, asking them to receive him again and 
bury all dissension. Not without reason was the charge inserted 
to keep the peace. For Liberius was returning to a see already 
occupied for nearly three years by the imperially nominated 
usurper Felix and to a church divided between those who had 
drifted with the Arian tide and those who had scorned and held 
aloof from it. The problem of which man had actually the right 
to the bishopric appeared puzzling. The government directed 


176 A translation of this creed is in J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient 
Church History, pp. 316-318. It is known as the Second of Sirmium. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE S45 


them both to act as bishops in concert, regardless of the funda- 
mental rule of catholic organization, that there could not be two 
heads of the Church in the same city, and of the insuperable, 
practical obstacles to harmony that were sure to arise between 
two parties, one of which felt that the other had bought safety 
at the price of cowardice and treachery.’” 

The accounts of the situation are somewhat confused but 
make sufficiently clear the fact that the city as a whole welcomed 
enthusiastically the news of Liberius’ return, hardly realizing that 
he no longer deserved to be hailed as a hero, and that it hooted 
the idea of a dual bishopric. ‘“ A bishop for each party in the 
circus! ” the crowds shouted in derision. Liberius seems to have 
hesitated a while before entering the gates, not knowing, per- 
haps, where to go as long as Felix occupied the Lateran. But the 
people solved the dilemma for him by driving Felix out and 
away in humiliation. Liberius made a triumphal entry and 
thenceforth held the post of bishop alone to all intents and pur- 
poses. Felix, after one futile effort to recover at least the basilica 
of Julius, resigned himself to living in innocuous retirement on an 
estate between Rome and Portus, although he retained his episco- 
pal title and a group of adherents who preferred him to Liberius. 
Outside of Rome, neither one for the time being had much moral 
influence. Felix was known to be Constantius’ creature. Li- 
berius’ apostasy in Thrace was not widely noised abroad but it 
was, of course, obvious that he could not have returned without 
some compromise with the imperial party. For several years to 
come there is no further mention of him in history. 

But although Athanasius was gone and the church in the 
West was manned with bishops who, on that point, had yielded to 
the emperor, there was still no unanimity about the creed. Many 
had condemned the unknown Alexandrian without once suspect- 
ing his connection with their own traditional orthodoxy. In the 
East meanwhile, among those who disapproved of the “ homo- 
ousios ” a cleavage was growing up. On the one hand were those 


177 It is noteworthy that even the papal historians seem to have felt that 
Felix had a certain excuse for his position that other early antipopes did not have. 
He is the only one to be given a place in the official, papal lists. He appears there 
always as Felix II. The Liber Fontificalis makes a hero and martyr out of him. 
L. R. Loomis, The Book of the Popes, 75-79. 


546 THE SEE OF PETER 


cautious conservatives who had always disliked the Nicene phrase 
as implying a Sabellian failure to distinguish between the Father 
and the Son but who were satisfied to substitute the word 
‘““homoiousios,” “like in substance,” and intended no disparage- 
ment of the Son’s divinity. On the other hand was appearing, 
as at Sirmium, a later and more extreme type of Arian, who in- 
sisted that the Son could not even be called “like the Father ” 
but that he was both unlike and unequal, in all respects upon a 
lower plane. Within the party of these Anomoeans, the “ Un- 
likers,” were soon the ubiquitous Ursacius and Valens, who began 
working upon Constantius to bring about the formal and general 
repudiation of the Nicene Creed and the adoption, instead, of a 
creed as radical as the one which they had forced upon Hosius. 
Certain of the conservatives or so-called semi-Arians began there- 
upon to suspect that in essentials they were, after all, nearer to 
the Nicene West than to this disturbing form of Arianism and that 
“same in substance” and “ like in substance ” were not so far 
apart as “unlike” and “like.” The small orthodox or Nicene 
party in the East, including the exiles, Hilary of Poitiers in Asia 
Minor and Athanasius in Egypt, saw the immense advantage that 
would accrue from a rapprochement between these sober-minded 
semi-Arians and the church of the West and began publicly teach- 
ing the practical equivalence of ‘‘ homoousios” and “homoi- 
ousios.” *"* One of the semi-Arians, Basil, bishop of Ancyra, was 
able to secure the consent of Constantius, in an unguarded mo- 
ment, to the summons of a general council to discuss the creed, 
expecting that in such a gathering the western bishops would join 
with the eastern ‘‘ Homoiousians ” and that together they could 
overwhelmingly defeat the Anomoeans. 

The latter, however, were not to be trapped so easily. They 
quickly sent two of their own bishops to Constantius and con- 
vinced him that it would be too difficult and expensive to transport 


178 See, for example, Hilary, De Synodis, 11. “ Men who accept everything 
that was endorsed at Nicaea but yet have scruples over the word ‘ homoousios’ 
should not be treated as foes. I do not resist them as wild Arians nor as enemies 
of the faith of the Fathers. I discuss questions with them, as a brother with 
brothers who think as we do and disagree upon only one word.” This and more 
are translated in J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 319- 
320. See also Athanasius, De Synodis, 41. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 547 


so many men from the West to the East, that the difference in 
language would inevitably be a bar to satisfactory discussion, 
and that for these reasons it would be wiser to split the council 
and hold the western section by itself in Rimini and the eastern 
in Seleucia, in southern Asia Minor. ‘They did not, however, 
prevent the appointment of Marcus of Arethusa, who occupied 
a vacillating position between the opposing factions, to draw up 
a formula for the emperor to present to the two assemblages to 
sign. Neither set of bishops was to have any say as to the creed 
it would endorse. They were both to be instructed to sign 
what was offered them, transact any other business they might 
have and then send each a delegation of ten out of their number to 
meet Constantius at Constantinople and sign together their 
final profession of obedience to him and agreement with one an- 
other. The creed, hereafter known as that of Rimini, displeased 
the Anomoeans, for it contained twice over the phrase likening 
the Son to the Father; but it also offended the consciences of the 
two wings of the eastern and western churches that we may here 
classify roughly together as orthodox, by its condemnation of any 
reference to “substance,” as a cause of scandal to the people.*” 

In July, 359, nearly four hundred western bishops met, as 
commanded, at Rimini. No one appeared to represent the divided 
See of Rome.*®° Restitutus, bishop of Carthage, was the outstand- 
ing figure at the head of the great majority who wished to be loyal 
to the orthodox doctrine of the past. They promptly protested 
against the imperial formula as well as against any other criticism 
of the creed of Nicaea, excommunicated Ursacius and Valens and 
two others, who came as bearers of Constantius’ instructions, and 
sent a deputation to the emperor to explain the impossibility of 
fulfilling his demands. But at court, the envoys were caught in 
the usual iron pressure, until one by one they rescinded in their 


179 J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 318-319. 

180 The first letter which the council sent by its ten deputies to the emperor 
contained an allusion to the confusion which the policy of the Arians had pro- 
duced in the church at Rome. Hilary, Fragmenta Historica, Series A, V, 1, 2. 
A synod of Damasus writing in after years to the bishops of Illyria, who were in- 
clined to stand by the creed of Rimini, made a point of the absence of Rome. 
“Nor can any weight be attached to the size of the meeting at Rimini, since it is 
well known that neither the Roman bishop, whose judgment should have been 
consulted first of all, nor Vincent [of Capua], . . . nor the rest had agreed to it.” 
Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 17; infra, p. 635. 


548 THE SEE OF PETER 


own names the acts of the body which had sent them. Thereupon, 
they were sent back to Rimini with directions to the praetorian 
prefect to allow no bishop to leave the city until all had signed 
the formula that had been presented them.*** Weeks passed in 
dull confinement. Some of the more ignorant prelates were de- 
luded into thinking that to deny “ homoousios” was different 
from denying Christ. At last, for utter weariness the rest also 
signed in order to go free.**? Ten delegates, led by Ursacius and 
Valens, were dispatched to Constantinople, carrying their sub- 
mission. They met there the envoys just arrived from the east- 
ern orthodox sympathizers at Seleucia, looking eagerly for west- 
ern reinforcement in the resistance they planned to make against 
coercion. To the dismay of these Easterners and to Hilary’s 
total consternation, the western bishops kept sullenly to them- 
selves and merely displayed the proofs of their debasement. 
Nothing seemed left for anyone but to join the synod that was 
called at the capital in January, 360, under the eye of Con- 
stantius, and sign the same creed. Not only Athanasius but also 
the council and faith of the Fathers had been abandoned by the 
entire Church. As Jerome said regarding the outcome of these 
gatherings, which had been started with so different an aim, 
“The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself 
Arian.” *** Not only were the bishops at Constantinople required 
to sign the new creed but copies of it were sent about from see 
to see and a man who refused to sign ran the risk of deposition 
and exile. Never had the spirit of the Church seemed more 
thoroughly quelled. 

A few indomitable individuals could not be silenced. Hilary 
of Poitiers, at the request of the Arians themselves, was com- 
manded, as “‘ a sower of discord and a disturber of the East,” 1% 

181 Constantius himself sent a peremptory letter to the assembly, telling them 
it was no business of theirs to pass judgment on eastern bishops. They had only 
to decide their own faith. Hilary, Fragmenta Historica, Series A, VIII, 1-2. 

182 See the dreary tone of the letter sent by the council to Constantius, when 
they had obeyed and foresworn the “ substance ” or “ ousia ” and now only longed 
to go home. Hilary, op. cit., Series A, VI, 1. 

183 Contra Luciferianos, 19. 

184 Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, II, 45, 4. Hilary could be audacious. See 
his second address to Constantius, composed before he left Constantinople, which 


contained passages like the following: “ What transformations has faith passed 
through, even in the past yearPe First, a creed that permits. no mention of 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 549 


to leave his exile in Asia Minor and go home to Gaul, where at 
least he would be less in evidence. On his reappearance in the 
West, he set once more unostentatiously to work, preaching, 
writing, arguing for the faith of the Nicene Fathers and of the 
apostle Peter. From the occupant of the Roman See personally 
he seems to have expected and received no assistance. But, as 
he pointed out, all who had compromised with Arianism had been 
untrue to the faith of that disciple who, by confessing Christ as 
the Son of the living God, had won the power to bind and loose 
in earth and heaven. They had strayed from the sacred leader- 
ship of Peter and Paul, and had bowed to the strength of the 
world and of error. Without a mention of the contemporary 
bishop of Rome, he revived the memory of the great founder of 
the Roman See and made his confession synonymous with the 
doctrine to which Rome had so long been conspicuously loyal. 
He summoned the church of the West in effect to return not only 
to Nicaea but also to ideal and apostolic Rome. Bishops who 
had signed at Rimini in weakness or lack of comprehension were 
stirred to remorse. 

The election of Julian as emperor, that same year, by the 
Gallic troops, mitigated, of course, a little the dread of Constan- 
tius’ anger. While Julian was marshalling his armies to lead 
against the East, a council of Gallic bishops met at Paris which 
reaffirmed the creed of Nicaea, deposed the stubborn Arian 
Saturninus and ordained that all who at Rimini had denied the 
rightful faith under constraint, might continue in office upon 
a repudiation of their signatures to that heterodox formula and 
a declaration of allegiance to Nicaea. 

In November, 361, Constantius died on his way to do battle 
with Julian and by his death the situation in the Church was 
again completely transformed. Julian at once issued an edict 
permitting the return of all bishops whom Constantius had 
banished and the worship of God by any mode whatever. The 
‘homoousios’; following that again, one that acknowledges and proclaims 
‘homoousios’; then, a third that indulgently concedes the simple ‘substance’ 
(ousia) as assumed by the fathers; finally, a fourth that does not concede but 
condemns it. And where then have we arrived? Where nothing of our own nor 


of anyone else before us remains for the future sacred and inviolable.” Lzber 
ad Constantium Imperatorem, Il, 5. 


550 THE SEE OF PETER 


measure may have been dictated by his philosophic breadth of — 


mind, or, as Ammianus says, by a malevolent notion that the 
Christians, if let loose from restrictions, would extirpate one 
another, ‘‘ no savage beasts ” being “‘ more ferocious than Chris- 
tians to each other.’’***> At all events, it released the Church 
in many places from a hated situation and allowed it to spring 
back into a more normal way of life. In Alexandria, the people 
rose spontaneously against George of Cappadocia, whom they had 
endured as bishop since 356, threw him into prison and then killed 
him and Athanasius returned, for the third time, to his see. A 
council, held by him at Alexandria soon afterward, arranged for 
the rehabilitation of all bishops who had lapsed upon a simple af- 
firmation of allegiance to Nicaea, and for the reconciliation of the 
old, orthodox “‘ Homoousians ”’ with the conservative wing of the 
‘“‘ Homoiousians ”’ on the understanding that the two terms should 
be interpreted as equivalent and that, to guard -against Sabel- 
lianism, the Godhead might be henceforth described as a Trinity 
within a Unity, three “ persons ” in one eternal “ substance.” *** 

In the parts of Asia where Arian theology had always had its 
chief following there was still some bitter division. At Antioch, 
four parties claimed the see and maintained a bishop, the extreme 
Anomoeans, the old style Arians or Eusebians, who saw no 
objection to the creed of Rimini and who composed the official 
church in possession of the great, new cathedral, and two sections 
of orthodox, the one headed by Paulinus, who disapproved of 
Athanasius’ concessions to the ‘‘ Homoiousians ” and preferred 
the pure, unalloyed, Nicene “ homoousios ” with no strange, new 
qualifications as to persons, the other by Meletius, who had been 
himself a ‘‘ Homoiousian” and now championed the creed of 
Nicaea with interpretations like those added at Alexandria. 

In the West, Liberius broke the silence of four years and 
resumed the old, dignified tone of leadership as if there had been 


185 Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, XXII, 5. 

186 Extracts from the synodal letter of Athanasius’ council of 362, addressed 
to the Meletian party at Antioch, are in J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient 
Church History, pp. 349-352. Western theologians of the third century, Tertullian 
and Novatian, had spoken of the three persons as “ tres personae.” ‘The Easterners 
had used the term “ hypostasis” in two senses, of the persons of the Trinity 
and of the essence in which they were one. For the confusion which this caused 
later, vide infra, pp. 659 and n. 350k, 660 fff. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 55T 


no miserable intermission. The death of Constantius had, of 
course, reduced his rival Felix to even greater insignificance than 
before. Liberius now sent to Alexandria his approval of the 
pacific policy adopted there.**’ Athanasius had expressed no 
rancor, only a scornful commiseration for the Roman’s desertion 
of him and intercourse between the sees was restored, at least 
formally and outwardly. Liberius also issued, either with or 
without the sanction of a synod, a general letter of instructions 
for the guidance of western churches in the reéstablishment of 
orthodoxy and discipline, the first, perhaps, of all the so-called 
“ decretal letters” of the popes. The letter itself is lost but he 
repeated certain articles of it in one which he wrote shortly after- 
ward to the bishops of Italy. All who have sinned, unaware of 
the full extent of their guilt, may be forgiven on profession of 
“the apostolic and catholic faith,” ‘“‘ especially now that all the 
Egyptians and the Achaeans have unanimously accepted this 
judgment.” It is both insolent and cruel to contend that such 
persons can never be reinstated. He provides also for the ad- 
mission, without second baptism, of Arians and other heretics who 
might desire to join the orthodox communion.*** 

Liberius might well take pains to champion the cause of 
the delinquent clergy and talk of moderation and forgiveness. 
For Lucifer of Cagliari and Eusebius of Vercellae, his lieu- 
tenants at the Synod of Milan in 355, to whom he had written 
of his own impatience to share their glory and their exile and 
who had remained ever since in unfaltering durance in the 
Thebaid, were on their way home, Lucifer, at least, in a mood 
of lofty severity. On his arrival in Italy, he refused to commune 
with any who had succumbed at Rimini and with any who had 
accepted their repentance. He made no specific allegations 
against his old chief. It is possible that he did not know exactly 
how Liberius had obtained his release from Thrace. He simply 
retired austerely to his diocese in Sardinia, “ contenting himself 
with his own communion.” At Rome, the deacon Hilary, also 


187 Athanasius, Letter to Rufinianus, read during the Second Council of 
Nicaea. G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, 
Vol. XII, p. 1029. 

188 See the allusion to Liberius’ letter in the Decretal of Bishop Siricius, 
infra, Appendix I, p. 699. 


552 THE SEE OF PETER 


back after his long banishment, formed the head of a party of 
rigor, that went the length of demanding that the signers of 
Rimini and those who received them must be baptized anew, if 
they were to be saved. But these and the one or two Arian 
appointees of Constantius who survived, such as Auxentius in 
Milan, made small discord in the harmony that spread rapidly 
over the West. Only the Danubian provinces, from which 
Ursacius and Valens had come, were inclined still to hold apart 
and the church of Carthage under Restitutus hesitated. Any 
rumors derogatory to the Roman bishop which may have cir- 
culated after 358 died down and were willingly forgotten. Few 
men cared to look back to the reign of Constantius or to stir up 
its ugly ghosts. Rufinus of Aquileia, who ten years later began 
a long ecclesiastical career that brought him into frequent con- 
nection with Rome and who utilized every chance to inform him- 
self on matters of church history, wrote in his Chronicle that he 
had never been able to discover why Liberius came back so soon 
from exile, whether he actually did yield to Constantius or 
whether the emperor merely relented and let him go. So com- 
pletely was the sad business hushed up and lived down! **° 
The eleven years of Constantius passed then for the West 
like a bad dream, leaving few traces, apparently, but a small 
group of dissidents here and there. There followed a long period 
of religious peace and growing prosperity. In the East, the 
abortive attempt of Julian to revive paganism caused keen un- 
easiness and some disturbances, which, however, were relieved 
by his death, in 363, and the accession of the tolerant Jovian, 
who tried to treat all sects fairly and countenanced no perse- 
cutions. But early in 364, Jovian also died and was succeeded 
by Valentinian I, who named his brother Valens as his coadjutor. 
The Empire was again divided and remained so thereafter with 
a few brief interruptions. Valentinian, who held the West and 
the Central Mediterranean regions, as Constans had done, was 
like Constans, an able administrator, interested principally in 
the preservation of internal order and the fortification of the 
189 Rufinus, Historia Ecclesiastica, I, 27. The historian Theodoret, who 


wrote in the following century, gives us a circumstantial story of Liberius’ return 
to Rome without a hint of his apostasy. Infra, p. 582. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 553 


frontiers against the restless hordes of barbarians. As far as 
his own convictions were concerned, he believed sincerely in the 
Nicene Creed and the orthodox Church, of which Rome, in his 
own dominion certainly, was the undisputed head, but he pre- 
ferred not to be drawn into religious questions and to leave the 
bishops to regulate their own affairs.**°* Valens, on the other 
hand, had barely established himself at Constantinople when he 
fell under the spell of Eudoxius, the Arian bishop of the city, a 
survivor of the entourage of Constantius, determined to reassert 
the authority of the Councils of Rimini and Seleucia. The West, 
of course, was now out of reach of any eastern interference but 
the unfortunate East, after its short reprieve, awoke to find itself 
again under an emperor who was both intolerant and Arian. 

In the spring of 365, the edict went out that all bishops de- 
posed by Constantius and restored under Julian should once 
more withdraw from their sees. The churches were again invaded 
by prefects and armed men. Even the aged and much tried 
Athanasius was again obliged to depart, although a year later, 
an exception was made in his favor and he was permitted to 
return and govern his people until his death. Meletius was driven 
from Antioch. A group of moderate bishops in or near Asia 
Minor, including a number called Macedonians after their leader 
Macedonius, a former bishop of Constantinople who had been 
deposed by the pro-Arian assembly of 360, had recently met at 
Lampsacus on the Hellespont and condemned the creed of Rimini 
and proclaimed their firm loyalty to ‘ homoiousios” and the 
near-orthodox creed of Antioch. These men now appealed to 
Valens for a hearing but were rebuffed. Everywhere about them 
they saw portents betokening a return to Constantius’ policy of 
bigoted persecution. In their anxiety, they decided to call for 
sympathy and support from the West, as the orthodox eastern 
bishops had done twenty years before. They chose three dele- 
gates, Eustathius of Sebaste in Roman Armenia, Silvanus of 
Tarsus and Theophilus of Castabala in Cilicia and gave them 


1898 When the eastern bishops, in 364, sent one of their number to ask per- 
mission to hold a synod, he answered: “ My place is among the laymen. I have 
no right to meddle in these matters. Since it is the bishops’ business, let them 
meet where they choose.” Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 7, 2. It was not 
the kind of reply the East was accustomed to receive. 


554 THE SEE OF PETER 


letters signed by sixty-four names, with instructions to see both 
Valentinian and Liberius, and, if necessary, to go to the length 
of subscribing to the Nicene Creed and “ homoousios ” in order 
to win western interest. 

On their arrival in Italy, the envoys learned that the emperor 
was absent, fighting the Sarmatians in Gaul. They concluded 
not to pursue him but to concentrate their efforts on obtaining the — 
support of the Church, beginning, of course, at Rome. So, in the 
last year of his life, Liberius found himself in a position com- 
parable to that of Julius, judge of catholic doctrine and authority 
for East as well as for West. It is said that at first he declined 
to receive the “ Homoiousians,”’ insisting that they were Arians, 
the old enemies of his faith,**° but that they finally convinced him 
of their essential accord and removed his last doubts by a written 
statement to the effect that they and their constituents ac- 
cepted the creed of Nicaea and promised to submit any disputes 
that might arise to judges whom he approved. Thus satis- 
fied, Liberius gave them a letter to the sixty-four whom they 
represented and to all the orthodox or ‘ homoousian ” bishops 
in the East, assuring them encouragingly of his own union with 
them in the catholic and apostolic faith and of the recovery of 
‘“‘almost all” the bishops of the West “ from the darkness of 
heresy.” 

Armed with this credential, the three delegates halted in Sicily 
on their homeward voyage and received a fraternal welcome and 
letters from the bishops there and from others in Gaul and Africa. 
Upon their return home, they promptly made overtures to the 
scattered groups of “‘ Homoousians”’ still existing in parts of 
Asia Minor and Syria. A joint preliminary synod of both the 
closely related parties was held at Tyana, the letter of Liberius 
was read aloud and copies circulated widely. Enthusiasm spread 
for a coalition of all eastern anti-Arian elements with the western 
church under the auspices of the one apostolic bishop who seemed 
competent to lead them. Plans were made for a much larger 

190 EKustathius had been one of the “ Homoiousians” who had taken part in 
Liberius’ humiliation at Sirmium. The tables were turned now, the apostate 


prisoner become the leader of orthodoxy with a group of his old opponents suing 
for reconciliation. So far as our documents show, no one now mentioned Sirmium. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 555 


council at Tarsus to accomplish this step and to create a new 
and greater Nicene church in the East. But the consent of Valens 
was required for the calling of such an assembly and Valens 
refused. 

Negotiations, thus suspended, were further impeded by the 
intrusion at this juncture of a new phase of the old dogmatic 
problem. What were the nature and position of the third person 
of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit? Athanasius at Alexandria was 
arguing that the Nicene formula must be followed to its logical 
conclusion and that the Spirit must be regarded as equal or 
““homoousios ” with the Son and the Father. Many “ Homoiou- 
sians ” and almost all the “ Homoousians ”’ accepted this corol- 
lary to their previous thesis, but the wing which retained the 
name of Macedonians protested that it could not see its way to 
granting the additional proposition. The unity of the catholic 
East was broken just as it was about to crystallize. With things 
still in this unsettled state, Liberius died, in September, 366. 
His rival Felix had died in the preceding year and his followers, 
who had returned to Rome, had been received by Liberius in 
a forgiving spirit and admitted to their old standing in the 
church.*** 


On Liberius and his times see L. Duchesne, Early History of the Chris- 
tian Church (trans. from the 4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 vols., London, 1910- 
1924), Vol. II, chaps. VII-X; H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism (2nd 
ed., Cambridge, 1900); A. Harnack, History of Dogma (trans. by N. 
Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 1897-1901), Vol. IV, chap. I; R. W. Bush, St. 
Athanasius, his Life and Times (London, 1888); G. Kriiger, Dze Bedeutung 
des Athanasius, in Jahrbiicher fiir protestantische Theologie (Brunswick, 
1890), Vol. XVI, pp. 337-356; O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (trans. by T. 
Shahan, St. Louis, 1908), $61; B. J. Kidd, History of the Church to 
A.D. 461 (3 vols., Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. II, chaps. V-VIII. 


191 During his latter years as bishop, Liberius built the magnificent basilica 
on the Esquiline Hill, now known as Santa Maria Maggiore. The columns, wall 
structure and mosaics of the nave are still substantially as he left them. 


556 THE SEE OF PETER 


1. THE COMING OF PERSECUTION 


Liberius, Letter to Hostus, extract, quoted by Hilary, 
Fragmenta Historica, Series B, VII, 5-6. Text. Corpus 
Scriptorum Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 167. 


And he [Liberius] wrote the following letter to Ossius 
regarding the downfall of Vincent. “In this connection, 
because I ought not to fail to notify you of everything, I 
do inform your holiness that many of my fellow bishops of 
Italy assembled here and joined with me in a petition 
to the most devout emperor Constantius, that he would give 
command, as he resolved to do some time since, for the 
holding of a council at Aquileia; also that Vincent of Capua, 
together with Marcellus, another bishop from Campania, 
undertook the embassy for us. Of the former I hoped much, 
because he thoroughly comprehended the case and had sat 
often as a judge in the same matter with your excellency,”* 
and I believed that he would observe the rule of the gospels 
and of an embassy. Not only did he achieve nothing but 
he himself was induced to take part in the treachery there. 
Since his act I have been plunged into double sorrow and 
have determined to die for God’s sake rather than become 
a traitor at the last or give my consent to deeds contrary 
to the gospel.” 


Liberius, Epistolae, III. Text. C. T. G. Schoenemann, 
Pontificum Romanorum Epistolae Genuinae, 266-267. 


Bishop Liberius to his most beloved brother, Eusebius. 
Your indomitable faith, dearest brother, is my support 
and comfort in this present life, for through it you have 
192 Vincent, in his youth, had been one of the two Roman priests at Nicaea. 
Supra, p. 470, n. 64. He had also been at Sardica with Hosius and was sent as an 


envoy to Constantius after that meeting. He was undoubtedly a member of the 
Roman synod that heard Athanasius’ defense in 340. 


a se la eel ‘ 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 557 


followed the precepts of the gospels and departed no whit 
from the company of the Apostolic See. Through the guid- 
ance of God, I believe, who keeps those who are worthy in 
his priesthood, you out of your good purpose have achieved 
this. 

Now Vincent upon his embassy was lured into treach- 
ery and the other bishops of Italy were compelled in a 
public assembly to submit to the verdicts of the Easterners. 
But then, by God’s grace, our brother and fellow bishop, 
Lucifer, arrived from Sardinia, who, upon hearing of the 
snares concealed in the situation and realizing what the 
heretics were attempting to do under pretext of the name 
of Athanasius, undertook in his devotion to the faith a 
righteous enterprise and is going to the court of our religious 
prince to explain the whole case in order and to request that 
all the questions which have come to the general notice may 
be settled in an assembly of the priests of God. 

So, because I know that the holy fervor of your faith is 
in harmony with his, I am asking you in your wisdom, if, 
by God’s favor, he finds you at court, to put forth your 
earnest effort through whatever agency you can to bring all 
the demands of our catholic faith to the attention of the 
most clement emperor, that he may at last forget his anger 
and do what may tend wholly to our peace and to his own 
salvation. I think it would be superfluous to describe the 
entire case in detail by letter to your honor, since the afore- 
said brother of mine and his companions can tell you every- 
thing by word of mouth on their arrival. 

God keep you safe, dearest lord and brother. 


192a 


192a Liberius wrote soon afterwards a second letter to Eusebius, to announce 
the starting of Lucifer with a priest, Pancratius, and a deacon Hilary, “to assail 
the enemies of the Church.” Epistolae, V. 


558 THE SEE OF PETER 


Liberius, Epistolae, VI. Text. C. T. G. Schoenemann, 
Op. ctt., 273-274. | 


Bishop Liberius to his most beloved brother, Eusebius.**” 

I knew, dearest lord and brother, that you who were 
ardent in the Spirit of God would deign to give faithful 
comfort in a cause of that faith that can commend us to the 
Lord, to our brother and fellow bishop, Lucifer, and to our 
fellow priest, Pancratius, who went to you with my son, 
the deacon Hilary, and that you could not refuse them who, 
you knew, had undertaken so arduous a journey out of 
devotion to their faith, My mind, however, was much re- 
lieved by the reading of your letter. Nay, now indeed I 
am confident that the affair may turn out successfully, with 
God’s aid, because you would not forsake our brothers. 
Strive then as a good soldier, who expects reward from the 
everlasting Emperor, and endeavor to show the strength of 
your mind, by which I know you have despised the allure- 
ments of this world, against those who are without the light 
of the Church. As you hold this life in contempt, prove 
yourself a priest indeed, that through your labors on behalf 
of the Church a council may be convened and all the 
harm which strangers have craftily plotted to the prejudice 
of the faith may be converted to good. Eternal rewards 
wait upon your labors, as your excellent faith well under- 
stands. We must encourage you as we can, even though our 
exhortation be cold, that the fervent Holy Spirit, who is in 
you, may for the unity of the holy Church awaken your mind 
each moment to greater consolations. 

I dispatched a letter also to our brother and fellow 
bishop, Fortunatianus,”°° who, I knew, feared not the 
persons of men and thought rather of the recompense to 


192b-This is Liberius’ third letter to Eusebius. It was written obviously in 
the same year as the previous two, i.e., 354. : 

192¢ Liberius was mistaken in this man. Fortunatianus, bishop of Aquileia, 
joined the Arianizers at Milan and did his best to make Liberius do the same 
when he met him in exile. Vide supra, p. 543, n. 175a, and infra, p. 583. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 559 


come, asking him too to deign now to stand guard with you 
for the sincerity of his heart and the faith which he knows 
he has defended even at the risk of his life. I know that 
he will unhesitatingly support your wisdom with his counsel 
in the holiness of his heart and that he will not refuse you 
his company, if you wish it, beloved, on any occasion. 

God keep you safe, dearest lord and brother. 


Liberius, Letter to Constantius,’ Hilary, Fragmenta His- 


torica, Series A, VII. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesi- 
asticorum Latinorum, LXV, 89-93. 


Bishop Liberius to the most glorious Constantius 
Augustus. 

I beseech you, most serene emperor, in your clemency 
to lend me your gracious ear, that the thought of my heart 
may be made known to your mercy. From a Christian 
emperor, indeed, and the son of Constantine of holy memory 
I ought to receive this boon without delay. Yet I know 
that I am struggling against difficulty, for although I have 
asked before for satisfaction, I cannot bring your mind, 
so lenient to the guilty, to favor me. The proclamation 
that your reverence sent some time ago to the people is 
exceedingly painful to me, who must bear all things with 
patience.” I marvel that your heart, that always has room 
for kindness, that never, as the Scripture says, keeps its 
wrath unto the setting of the sun, still harbors toward me 
its indignation. For I, most religious emperor, seek after 
true peace with you, which shall not be compounded of 
words with an inner intention of deceit but shall be reason- 
able and fortified by the precepts of the gospel. Not only 
the business of Athanasius but many other questions have 


193 This letter is also found appended, in several manuscripts, to the writings 
of Lucifer of Cagliari, who was the bearer of it to Constantius. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclestasticorum Latinorum, Vol. LXV, preface by A. Feder, p. xl. 

194 The proclamation described supra, p. 537. 


560 THE SEE OF PETER 


come up which have caused me to beg your clemency for a 
council, so that, first of all, in accordance with the desire 
of your own spirit of sincere devotion to God, the state of 
the faith, in which is our prime hope toward God, might 
be carefully discussed and then the cases of those persons 
who ought to observe our fidelity to God might be settled. 
It would have been worthy of a worshipper of God and 
worthy of your Empire, which is governed and increased by 
Christ’s goodness, and particularly conducive to reverence 
for the holy religion, over which you keep sagacious watch, 
if you had granted us this request. 

But there are many persons bent upon injuring the 
members of the Church, and they have fabricated a story that 
I have suppressed letters, in order that the sins of the man 
whom they say they have condemned might not become uni- 
versally known, letters, namely, from eastern and Egyptian 
bishops, in all of which the same charges against Athanasius 
were contained.’ But it is well known to everyone and 
no one denies it that we did report the letters from the East 
and read them to the church, read them to the council and 
replied to that effect to the Easterners. But we did not give 
them our faith and approbation, because, at the same time, 
the judgment of eighty other Egyptian bishops on Athana- 
sius was the opposite of theirs and we read and communi- 
cated that also to the Italian bishops. It seemed a violation 
of divine law to give our support to either party, when the 
majority of the bishops sided with Athanasius. Eusebius, 
who was acting as envoy, left these letters with us, as one 
faithful to God, when he went in haste to Africa, but after- 
wards Vincent, who was our legate with the others, carried 
all the documents to Arles, in case he perhaps might need 
them in obtaining permission for a council. 


195 These were the letters sent to Liberius after his accession, in which the 
eastern bishops attempted to prejudice the new Roman bishop against Athanasius 
and impress upon him the desirability of acquiescing in the campaign against him. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE _ 561 


So your wisdom may perceive that no thought has 
entered my mind unworthy of the consideration of the 
servants of God. God is my witness, the whole Church with 
its members is witness, that I am walking and have walked 
in all the affairs of this world in the faith and fear of my 
God, by the precepts and principles of the gospel and the 
apostles. In no rash disposition but in the maintenance and 
observance of divine law, I have lived in the Church, even 
while I performed another ministry, and have done nothing 
out of arrogance and nothing out of avarice for glory but 
only that which belonged to the law. And God is my witness 
that I undertook this office against my will and that my aim 
is to continue in it without offense to God, as long as I am 
in the world. The decrees that I have carried out have never 
been my own but the apostles’, that they might be forever 
confirmed and upheld. I have followed the custom and rule 
of my predecessors and have suffered nothing to be added 
to the bishopric of the city of Rome and nothing to be de- 
tracted from it. And I desire always to preserve and guard 
unstained that faith which has come down through so long a 
succession of bishops, among whom have been many 
martyrs. 

Finally, my solicitude for the Church and my piety are 
now prevailing upon me to unfold my cause to your rever- 
ence. The Easterners are sending word that they are will- 
ing to unite with us in peace. But what is peace, most 
merciful emperor, when in their party are the four bishops, 
Demophilus, Macedonius, Eudoxius and Martyrius, who 
eight years ago refused at Milan to condemn the heretical 
tenets of Arius and left the council in anger? ** You, in 
your justice and clemency, can decide whether it is right 
to assent to their judgment, no matter what it means nor 
what peril it implies. It is no new thing which they are now 
craftily attempting, under the cover afforded by the case 


196 Supra, p. 500 and n. 112. 


562, THE SEE OF PETER 


of Athanasius. We have here a letter sent long ago by 
Bishop Alexander to Silvester of holy memory, in which, 
before the ordination of Athanasius, he reported that he had 
expelled from the church eleven priests and deacons, because 
they were espousing the heresy of Arius.’ Some of these 
men are said to be living now outside the catholic Church 
and to have set up miniature councils for themselves, and 
George of Alexandria is said to be in communion with them. 
So what peace can there be, most serene emperor, if bishops 
are to be taken and forced, as is now being done in Italy, 
to submit to the judgments of such persons? 

Hear another thing, by permission of your long-suffering 
benignity! We have a letter recently arrived from the 
envoys which we sent to your clemency.” In it they inform 
us that because of the disturbed condition of all the churches, 
they some time earlier agreed to yield to the judgments of 
the Easterners but that they made a condition, namely, that 
if the eastern bishops would condemn the heresy of Arius, 
they themselves would yield and submit to their judgments. 
This understanding, they say, was confirmed by writing. 
They then went to the council and received, after delibera- 
tion, the answer that the Easterners could not condemn the 
doctrine of Arius but that Athanasius must be excluded from 
communion and that this was all they demanded. From this 
let your clemency consider how the laws of the catholic 
religion may be duly observed and the case of this man 
be diligently and completely investigated. 

So, once and again, we entreat your gracious and devout 
spirit, by that virtue which proved its power before all 
humankind in your defense,” to keep before your eyes the 


favor of him who controls your Empire in all things and > 


to have these matters examined thoroughly, with full de- 


197 Supra, pp. 467-468. 
198 Vincent of Capua and Marcellus, who went to Arles. 
199 Against Magnentius, after the death of Constans. 


ae 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 563 


liberation, in an assemblage of bishops, so that, by God’s 
grace, our time may be at peace through you and everything 
may be discussed with the consent of your serenity, and 
the decisions which were approved by the judgment of the 
priests of God and to which everyone agreed in the state- 
ment of faith confirmed by so many bishops at Nicaea, in 
the presence of your father of holy memory, may be pre- 
served for a pattern to posterity. The Savior himself, who 
from on high beholds the thought of your heart, may rejoice 
that in so important an undertaking you have meritoriously 
set the cause of faith and peace above even the needs of the 
State. And I have deputed my brother and fellow bishop, 
the holy Lucifer, with the priest Pancratius and the deacon 
Hilary, to go to you to entreat your clemency to deign to 
listen favorably to our representations. We believe that 
they will be able without difficulty to procure from your 
grace a council for the peace of all catholic churches. The 
mercy of almighty God preserve you to us, most merciful 
and devout Augustus! 


Lucifer, Pancratius and Hilary, Letter to Eusebius. Text. 
J. Harduin, Acta Conciliorum et Epistolae Decretales, 
I, 698. 


Bishop Lucifer, the priest Pancratius, and Hilary to their 
most honorific lord, Bishop Eusebius.**” 

The head of the devil is bruised with its wicked inven- 
tions, holy lord, but we ask you for the grace granted you 
by our Lord; do not forget us. Deign now to hasten, that 
at your speedy coming the doctrine of the Arians may be 
overthrown. For the Lord and his Christ know that just 
as the name of God was glorified in the destruction of Simon 
by the arrival of the most blessed apostles,’ so Valens 


1994 Eusebius, bishop of Vercellae. This letter was evidently written from 
Milan, whither the Roman delegation had preceded Eusebius. 
199> The allusion is to the downfall of Simon Magus. Supra, p. 176. 


564 THE SEE OF PETER 


[the turncoat bishop from Pannonia] will be routed by your 
appearance and the machinations of the blaspheming Arians 
will be undone and wholly ruined. We, most holy lord, from 
the first day when we came to Vercellae even to today have 
longed for your piety and beseech the Lord that all the saints 
in this church may praise its lasting restoration and duly ac- 
claim the valor of your spirit. We believe that this will come 
to pass, because we are confident that the passion of the 
Savior cannot be defeated. 

Christ the Lord keep you glorious, most holy and most 
blessed. 


Hilary, Ad Constantium, I, 3. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 186-187. 


Eusebius, bishop of Vercellae, is one who all his life has 
served God. After the council at Arles, where Bishop 
Paulinus opposed the criminal behavior of the other party, 
he [Eusebius] was ordered to come to Milan. But although 
the synagogue of evildoers was in session there for ten days, 
he was forbidden to enter the church, while their perverse 
spite was venting itself against the holy man. Finally, when 
their plans were all perfected, he was summoned at the time 
it suited them. He appeared in company with the clergy 
from Rome and Lucifer, bishop of Sardinia. And when he 
was directed to sign the condemnation of Athanasius, he said 
that it was necessary first to agree upon the faith of the 
Church and that he knew that some of those present were 
polluted by the stain of heresy. And he displayed before 
them all the creed that was made at Nicaea, of which we 
have already spoken, and promised to do everything they 
asked of him, if they would sign that profession of faith. 
Dionysius, bishop of Milan, was the first to take up the 
paper. But when he began to write his profession, Valens 
snatched the pen and the paper violently from his hands, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 565 


crying that nothing could be done in that way. After 
considerable tumult, the incident came to the knowledge of 
the people and everyone was deeply indignant that the 
bishops were attacking the faith. So, in fear of the people’s 
judgment, the synod moved from the church to the palace. 


Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 33, 34, 76. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 731, 785. 


33... 90 it is clear to all that their [the Arians’ ] 
wisdom is not of God but of man and that the followers of 
Arius have in truth no king but Caesar. For through his 
power the enemies of Christ accomplish all their purposes. 
But they imagine that through him they are bringing harm 
upon many and do not perceive that they are making many 
confessors. Of which number are the godly and upright 
bishops who have recently made a glorious confession, 
Paulinus, bishop of Trier, the metropolis of Gaul, and 
Lucifer, bishop of the metropolis of Sardinia, Eusebius of 
Vercellae in Italy and Dionysius of Milan, which is also a 
metropolis of Italy. These men were summoned by the 
emperor and commanded to subscribe against Athanasius 
and to communicate with the heretics. And when they in 
astonishment at this strange order said that there was no 
ecclesiastical canon for it, he instantly retorted: ‘“‘ Take 
my will for a canon! The bishops of Syria have to hear 
speech like this! So either obey or go yourselves into 
exile! ” 

34 When the bishops heard this, they were all amazed 
and stretched out their hands to God and tried to reason 
with the emperor and persuade him, telling him that the 
Empire belonged not to him but to God, who had given it 
to him, and bidding him beware lest God might suddenly 
take it away. They warned him of the day of judgment 
and counselled him not to derange the ecclesiastical organ- 


566 THE SEE OF PETER 


ization and not to use the Roman government to annul the 
rules of the Church and not to introduce the Arian heresy 
into the Church of God. But the emperor would not heed 
them nor allow them to go on speaking but threatened them 
more fiercely and drew his sword against them. He gave 
orders that some of them should be executed but afterwards, 
like Pharaoh, he changed his mind... . 

76 When he [Constantius] saw the boldness of the 
bishops Paulinus, Lucifer, Eusebius and Dionysius and how 
they confuted those who spoke against the bishop | Atha- 
nasius |] by citing the recantation of Ursacius and Valens and 
arguing that no further trust should be put in Valens, since 
he had once retracted what he was now asserting,” he sud- 
denly stood up and said: “ I am now the accuser of Atha- 
nasius; on my account, you must believe what these men 
say.” And then, when they replied: “‘ But how can you be 
an accuser, when the accused man is not here? And granted 
that you are his accuser, still he is not here and therefore 
cannot be tried. This is not a Roman court, where you, 
as emperor, must be believed, but it is the trial of a bishop. 
This trial must be fair both to the accuser and to the de- 
fendant. And how will you accuse him? For you cannot 
have been in the company of one who lives so far from you. 
And if you speak from what you have heard from these men 
here, you must in justice believe also what he says of himself. 
But if you refuse to believe him and believe these men, then 
it is plain that they are instigated by you to say what they 
do and are accusing Athanasius in order to gratify you.” 
On hearing this and considering an honest speech as an 
insult, he sent them into exile.”” 


200 Supra, Pp. 531-533. 

201 Other accounts of Constantius’ synod at Milan are given by Rufinus, 
Historia Ecclesiastica, X, 20-23. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, II, 39; Lucifer, 
Moriendum, 1-4. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 567 


Liberius, Letter to the exiled bishops, Hilary, Fragmenta 
Historica, Series B, VII, 1-2. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 164-166. 


Liberius, before he went into exile, wrote this uniform 
letter to the confessors, that is, to Eusebius, Dionysius and 
Lucifer, who were in exile: 

“The enemy of the human race seems to have oppressed: 
still more violently under the guise of peace the members 
of the Church. Nevertheless, your wonderful and rare faith, 
priests acceptable to God, has shown you here approved by 
God and marked you now for future glory as martyrs. I 
can find no words with which to proclaim your praise or to 
publish exultantly the merits of your valor, torn as I am 
between grief for your loss and joy at your glory, save that 
I know that this sure comfort I could give you, an assurance 
that I too had been driven into exile with you. I am indeed 
in deep sadness that dire necessity for a while detains me 
from your company, while I am yet in this state of suspense 
and expectation. For I had hoped, my devoted brethren, 
to be spent first for you all, so that your love might have 
an example of glory to follow in me. But this will be the 
palm of your deserts, that you were the first to pass from 
perseverance in faith to the illustrious glory of confes- 
sion. ... [Their trial is even worse than that of the 
martyrs of old and they are certain of celestial reward. | 

Because you are now become very near to God, do you 
by your prayers lift me, your fellow priest and servant of 
God, to the Lord, so that when the onslaught comes, which 
from day to day is reported to be at hand and inflicting 
grievous wounds, I may be able to bear it steadfastly. 
May the Lord deign to make me equal to you, with faith 
inviolate and the state of the catholic Church unharmed! 
Also I wish to know more fully what happened during 
your audience. I beg your holiness to send me complete 


568 THE SEE OF PETER 


and accurate word by letter, so that my mind, now tor- 
tured by varying rumors, and my bodily strength, now 
much diminished, may feel themselves enlarged by your 
encouragement.” 

And, in another hand, ‘‘ God keep you safe, my lords 
and brothers.” 


2. THE BANISHMENT OF LIBERIUS 


Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, XV, 7, 6.°" Text. 
Ed. by C. U. Clark, I, 57. 


While this Leontius was governor [prefect at Rome], 
he received orders from Constantius to send Liberius, chief 
priest of the Christian law, to his court, on the ground that 
he was resisting the emperor’s commands and the decisions 
of many of his own colleagues in a matter which I shall 
briefly explain. An assembly of worshippers of this same 
law, a synod, as they call it, had removed from his sacred 
office Athanasius, bishop at that time in Alexandria, who 
was too arrogant for his profession and attempted to meddle 
in affairs outside his sphere, as rumor constantly testified. 
For he was said to be extraordinarily wise in fortune-tellers’ 


lore and in the interpretation of augural flights of birds and 


to have on several occasions predicted future events. Beside 
which, other things were attributed to him, abhorrent to the 
nature of the law which he administered. And Liberius, at 
the emperor’s direction, was told to agree with the rest and 
confirm by his signature Athanasius’ deposition from his 
priestly seat. But he obstinately refused and repeatedly 
declared that to condemn a man unseen and unheard was 
the ultimate crime, thus openly contradicting the emperor’s 
will. For the latter had always hated Athahasius and, al- 


202 This extract gives us the point of view of the pagan man in the street. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 569 


though he knew that his deposition was now accomplished, 
he still felt an ardent desire to have it confirmed by the 
more potent authority ** of the bishop of the eternal city. 
And when this could not be obtained, Liberius was, with 
great difficulty, carried off in the middle of the night 
stealthily for fear of the people, who loved him fervently. 


Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 35-38. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 733-737. 


So from the beginning they spared not even Liberius, 
bishop of Rome, but extended their fury until it covered 
even his territory.*°* They had no reverence for his see, 
because it is apostolic, nor respect for Rome, because she is 
the metropolis of the Roman Empire, nor recollection of the 
letters in which they had once addressed him as successor 
of the apostles. But they confounded everything together 
and forgot everything completely and thought only of satis- 
fying their ardor for impiety. For when these ungodly men 
perceived that Liberius stood orthodox and disdained the 
Arian heresy and endeavored to prevail upon everyone to 
renounce and abandon it, they reasoned as follows: “ If we 
can persuade Liberius, we shall soon overcome all the rest.” 
And they slandered him to the emperor. Then Constantius, 
expecting that through Liberius he could bring over every- 
one to his side, wrote at once and sent a eunuch, called 
Eusebius, with his letter and gifts, to wheedle Liberius 
with the gifts and threaten him with the letter. Then the 
eunuch went to Rome and, first, he summoned Liberius to 
subscribe to the condemnation of Athanasius, saying: ‘‘ This 

203 The Latin is “ auctoritate quoque potiore.” 

204 In a later passage, Athanasius says that Liberius had sent a priest, 
Eutropius, with a second letter to the emperor, to join the deacon Hilary, at the 
time that sentence was being pronounced against Lucifer, Dionysius and Eusebius, 


and that Eutropius was banished immediately and Hilary after a scourging. 
Historia Arianorum, 41. 


570 THE SEE OF PETER 


is the emperor’s will and command; do it!” Then he 
produced the gifts and pressed him, grasping him by the 
hand and saying: ‘‘ Obey the emperor and accept these 
gifts.” 

But the bishop attempted to argue and explain to him. 
‘“‘ How is it possible to pass this sentence on Athanasius? 
When not only one but two synods, assembled from every- 
where, have magnificently acquitted him and the church of 
the Romans has dismissed him in peace, how can we con- 
demn him? ‘Who will approve of us, if we repudiate in 
absence one whom we loved when present and with whom 
we were in communion? This is not the rule of the Church; 
no such tradition have we ever received from the Fathers, 
who themselves derived theirs from the blessed and great 
apostle Peter. If the emperor is indeed concerned for the 
Church’s peace and if he is ordering the abrogation of our 
letters regarding Athanasius, then let him abrogate also their 
proceedings against him, let him abrogate also those against 
everyone else and let him summon speedily a council of the 
Church far away from the palace, at which the emperor shall 
not be present nor any count appear nor any magistrate 
threaten us, but only the fear of God constrain us and the 
constitution of the apostles, that so, first of all, the faith 
of the Church may be kept safe, as the Fathers defined it at 
the Council of Nicaea, and the Arians may be expelled and, 
finally, heresy may be anathematized. Then, soon after- 
wards, let a trial be held to hear the charges which are being 
brought against Athanasius and anyone else as well, and also 
those which are being brought against the opposite party, 
and let the culprits be expelled and the innocent approved. 
For it is not possible to keep in a council men who are 
sacrilegious in their faith nor is it fitting that an examination 
into conduct should precede the examination into faith. We 
must first remove all discord in faith and then make our 
investigation into conduct. For our Lord Jesus Christ did 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 571 


not heal sufferers until they had expressed and declared what 
faith they had in him. This was the lesson we have from 
the Fathers and this do you report to the emperor, for it is 
both profitable to him and fortifying to the Church. Let 
him pay no heed to Ursacius and Valens, for they have 
retracted their former assertions and now, when they speak, 
are not to be trusted.” 

Thus spoke Bishop Liberius. And the eunuch, who was 
vexed not so much because he would not subscribe as be- 
cause he was openly hostile to heresy, forgot that he was in 
the presence of a bishop and threatened him fiercely and 
departed with the gifts. And he committed an offense which 
is unknown to Christians and too audacious for eunuchs. 
For he imitated the transgression of Saul *’ and went to the 
martyr’s shrine of the apostle Peter and there offered the 
gifts. But when Liberius heard of it, he was very displeased 
with the keeper of the place, because he had not prevented 
it, and he cast the gifts outside as an unhallowed sacrifice, 
and so stirred the eunuch to greater anger. Then the eunuch 
aroused the wrath of the emperor, saying: ‘“ We have not 
now to consider a method of inducing Liberius to subscribe 
but the fact that he is so set against heresy that he anathema- 
tizes Arians by name.” He also incited the other eunuchs 
to say the same, for there are many or, rather, they are all 
eunuchs around Constantius and they can do anything with 
him and without them nothing can be accomplished. Then 
the emperor wrote to Rome and again sent off palace 
officials and notaries and counts with letters to the prefect 
either to inveigle Liberius away from Rome by a trick and 
send him to the emperor at court or else to persecute him 
with violence. 

Such being the tenor of the letters, fear and treachery 
soon held sway throughout the city. How many houses were 


205 Saul, king of Israel, committed his first transgression by offering sacrifices 
which he should have waited for the priest Samuel to offer. I Kings, XITI, 5-14 
(Douay Version) ; I Samuel, XIII, 5-14 (King James Version). 


572 THE SEE OF PETER 


menaced! How many persons were offered great bribes 
to turn them against Liberius! How many bishops, be- 
holding it, went into hiding! How many free women retired 
to the country because of the insults of the foes of Christ! 
How many ascetics suffered from plots! How many so- 
journers and denizens in the city felt the persecution! How 
often and how closely was the harbor guarded and the en- 
trance gates, that no orthodox person might come to visit 
Liberius! Then Rome had her experience of the enemies 
of Christ and knew at last what she had hardly believed 
before upon report, how other churches and cities had been 
devastated by them. ... 

[One Epictetus, an eastern adventurer, was elected 
through court influence bishop of Centumcellae,°* near 
Rome, and instructed to keep a watch on Liberius. | 


Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 13. . Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LX XXII, 1033-1040. 


The emperor Constantius said:*” “‘ We have thought fit, 
since you are a Christian and bishop of our city, to send 
for you and admonish you to abjure communion with that 
unspeakable madman, the impious Athanasius. For the 
whole world has decided that this is right and by vote of 
a council has pronounced him debarred from the Church’s 
communion.”’ 

Bishop Liberius said: ‘‘O Emperor, the sentence of the 
Church should be given with strict justice. So, if it please 
your piety, command that a court be assembled and it be 
seen if Athanasius is worthy of condemnation. ‘Then the 
decision against him may be delivered according to the rule 

205a The modern Civita Vecchia. 


205b Athanasius gives a brief account of Liberius’ interview with Constantius 
in his Historia Arianorum, 39. 


alti 3 eee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 573 


of ecclesiastical procedure. For it is impossible to condemn 
a man whom we have not tried.” 

The emperor Constantius said: ‘“ All the world has con- 
demned him for his impiety and he, as he has done from the 
beginning, mocks at his own danger.” 

Bishop Liberius said: ‘The men who have signed his 
sentence were not witnesses of the events but were actuated 
by greed for glory or by fear or by dread of disgrace from 
you.” 

The emperor: “‘ What glory or fear or disgrace? ” 

Liberius: ‘‘ Men who love not the glory of God and 
prefer instead their gifts from you, have condemned one 
whom they have neither looked upon nor judged, a deed 
which is iniquitous for Christians.” 

The emperor: “ Indeed, he has been tried in person at 
the synod that was held in Tyre and all the bishops of the 
world condemned him at that synod.” 

Liberius: ‘“‘ He has never been judged in person. The 
men who were then assembled condemned Athanasius after 
he had left the tribunal.” 

The eunuch Eusebius said foolishly: ‘‘ At the Council 
of Nicaea he was convicted of divergence from the catholic 
idiths).7** 

Liberius: ‘‘ Only five of those who journeyed to Mareotis 
and who were sent to collect evidence against him when he 
was accused gave sentence against him. Of these, two are 
now dead, Theognis and Theodore, but the other three are 
still living, Maris and Valens and Ursacius.*’ ‘They were 
condemned at Sardica because of their part in this mission 
and they petitioned the council for pardon for having 
gathered evidence dishonestly against Athanasius in Mareo- 
tis from one side only. These petitions we have now at 

206 This remark shows, of course, the utter ignorance of the eunuch. Liberius, 


it will be noticed, ignores the interruption. 
207 Supra, PP. 475, 529, 532. 


574 THE SEE OF PETER 


hand. Which of these men, O Emperor, ought we to be- 
lieve and commune with, the three who once condemned 
Athanasius and later asked pardon for it or those who then 
condemned these three? ”’ 

The bishop Epictetus said: ‘““O Emperor, not for the 
sake of his faith nor to defend the judgments of the Church 
is Liberius making his speech today but so that he may brag 
to the senators in Rome that he defeated the emperor in 
argument.” 

The emperor said to Liberius: “‘ How large a portion 
of the world are you, that you take sides alone with an 
impious man and disturb the peace of the earth and all the 
universe? ” i 

Liberius: ‘‘ Even if I am alone, the word of faith is not 
weakened for that. Of old, three alone were found to resist 
the decree.” *”° | 

The eunuch Eusebius said: “ You have called our em- 
peror a Nebuchadnezzar!” 

Liberius: “‘ By no means! But you are acting as rashly 
as he, when you condemn a man whom we have not tried. 
So I ask, first of all, that a general confession be prepared 
that shall confirm the faith propounded at Nicaea and then 
that our brothers be recalled from exile and reinstated in 
their proper places. If then it becomes plain that those who 
are’now stirring up tumults in the churches will subscribe to | 
the apostolic faith, then let them everyone meet at Alex- 
andria, where the accused and his accusers and their de- 
fenders are, and let us examine the case and pass judgment 
upon it.” 

The bishop Epictetus said: ‘“‘ But the public post will not 
stand the strain of. transporting the bishops.” 

Liberius: ‘‘ The business of the Church will put no strain 
on the public post, for the churches are able to provide for 
the transportation of their own bishops as far as the sea.” 

208 The allusion is to Daniel, III. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 575 


The emperor: “ It is impossible to undo what has already 
been formally ratified. For the will of the majority of the 
bishops ought to prevail. You are the only one who insists 
upon friendship with that impious man.” 

Liberius said: “‘O Emperor, never have we heard of a 
judge, in the absence of the accused, denouncing his impiety, 
as if he bore a personal grudge against him.” 

The emperor: ‘‘ He has done harm to us all together but 
to no one so much as myself. He was not satisfied with the 
destruction of my older brother *” but constantly provoked 
the irritation of the blessed Constans against us, although 
we endured with great forbearance the vehemence of both 
the provoker and the provoked. So no victory will be. 
so grand for me, neither the one over Magnentius nor the 
one over Silvanus, as when I root out this pest from the 
government of the Church.” 

Liberius: “‘ Use not the bishops to avenge your private 
enmity, O Emperor! For the hands of the Church should 
be raised for consecration and blessing. ‘Therefore, if it 
please you, command the recall of the bishops to their own 
places and after it is seen that they are in accord with him 
who today maintains the orthodox faith as promulgated at 
Nicaea, then let them assemble in one spot and provide for 
the peace of the world, that a man who has done no wrong 
may not bear the reproach of a troublemaker.” 

The emperor: “ There is but one thing wanted. I wish 
you to enter into communion with the churches and then 
I shall send you back to Rome. Consent, therefore, to the 
peace and subscribe and return to Rome.” 

Liberius: “‘ I have taken leave already of the brethren 
in Rome. For the laws of the Church are of greater moment 
to me than a residence in Rome.” 


209 Constantine II had ordered the release of Athanasius from his detention 
at Trier and shown himself, in general, pacific in policy, but Athanasius had had 
no direct, personal relation with him and no connection whatever with his quarrel 
with Constans, which ended in his death. 


576 THE SEE OF PETER 


The emperor: “ You have an interim of three days for 
consideration whether you prefer to subscribe and return 
to Rome or to select the place of your banishment.” 

Liberius: ‘‘ Three days or three months interim will not 
change my mind. Send me wherever you wish.” 

Then, after two days, the emperor examined Liberius 
and finding that he had not changed his determination, he 
ordered him to be banished to Beroea, in Thrace. And after 
Liberius had left him, the emperor sent him five hundred 
gold pieces for his expenses. But Liberius said to the mes- 
sengers: “‘ Take them back to the emperor, for he needs them 
for the payment of his soldiers. And if the emperor does 
not need them, give them to Auxentius and Epictetus, for 
they need them.” Since he refused to receive money from 
them, the eunuch Eusebius offered him some and Liberius 
said to him: “‘ You have laid waste the churches of the world 
and do you offer me alms, as if I were a criminal? Go! 
First become Christian!”” After three days, having accepted 
nothing, he was sent into exile. 


Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 75. ‘Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 784. | 


Then he |Constantius| found one Epictetus, a neophyte 
and young adventurer, and liked him, for he saw that he was 
ready for mischief, and he employed him thereafter in con- 
Spiracies against any bishops he chose. For the fellow was 
ready to do everything that the emperor wished. Using him 
as his agent, Constantius carried out a shocking performance 
at Rome, resembling, in truth, the malignity of Antichrist. 
He had the palace prepared instead of the church and 
ordered some three of his eunuchs to attend in place of the 
people. Then he compelled three ill-favored *° spies, — for 


210 The Greek word here translated “ ill-favored” is xaxaoxoron. A play 
is doubtless intended upon its resemblance to the word éwicxomot, bishops. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 577 


no one would call them bishops, — to ordain there as bishop 
in the palace Felix, a man worthy of them. For all the 
people understood the illegality of these heretics and would 
not allow them to enter the church but held far aloof from 
them. 


3. THE PROTEST AGAINST IMPERIAL INTERFERENCE IN 
THE CHURCH 


Hosius, Letter to Constantius, Athanasius, Historia Aria- 
norum, 44. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 
XXV, 743-748. 


Hosius to the emperor Constantius, greeting in the Lord. 

I was first a confessor during the persecution under your 
grandfather, Maximian. If you, too, persecute me, I am 
ready even yet to suffer everything rather than shed innocent 
blood and betray the truth. But I do not approve of these 
threatening letters from you. Cease writing them! Do not 
become an Arian nor listen to the eastern party nor put 
confidence in Ursacius and Valens! For whatever they say 
they are saying not because of Athanasius but because of 
their own heresy. Believe me, Constantius, who am your 
grandfather in years! ) 

I was myself at the Council of Sardica, when you and 
your blessed brother Constans assembled us all together.*” 
And on my own account I challenged the enemies of Atha- 
nasius, when they came to the church where I was, to bring 
forward whatever they had against him. I bade them have 
courage and not expect anything but a righteous judgment — 
in every respect. I did this not once but twice, urging them, 
if they were unwilling to speak before the whole council, 
still to do so before me alone. I also assured them that if 
he were proved culpable, he would certainly be rejected by 

211 Supra, pp. 517 ff. 


578 THE SEE OF PETER 


us too, but that if he were found innocent and could prove 
them to be false talebearers and if they then refused to re- 
ceive him, I would persuade him to go with me to Spain. 
And Athanasius was induced to agree to these terms and 
made no objection, but they, without confidence in anything, 
still refused. On another occasion, Athanasius went to your 
court, when you wrote for him, and asked that his enemies, 
who were then in Antioch, be summoned either as a body 
or individually, in order that they might either convict him 
or be convicted, either prove him to his face to be what 
they asserted he was or cease slandering him in his absence. 
But you did not favor his proposal and they also spurned 
it. } 

Why then do you still pay heed to those who malign him? 
How can you endure Valens and Ursacius, who have once 
repented and made written confession of their calumnies? 
They have confessed that they were not coerced, as they 
pretend they were, that there were no soldiers around them 
and that your brother had no knowledge of it. Such things 
were not done under his government as are done now. God 
forbid! But they of their own will went up to Rome and 
indited their recantation in the presence of the bishop and 
the priests, after having previously sent to Athanasius a 
friendly and peaceable letter.” But if they pretend there 
was coercion and appreciate that it was wrong and if you 
too disapprove of it, then do you yourself refrain from 
coercion and write no letters and send no counts, but release 
those whom you have banished, lest, while you blame us for 
coercion, they use coercion still more violent upon us. 

What wrong like this was ever done by Constans? What 
bishop was sent into exile? When did he act as arbiter of 
an ecclesiastical tribunal? Which of his palatines forced 
men to subscribe against anyone, as Valens and his fellows 
declare? Cease, I entreat you, and remember that you are 
| 212 Supra, Pp. 531-534. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 579 


amortal. Fear the day of judgment and keep yourself pure 
against it. Intrude not yourself into the business of the 
Church and give no commandment to us regarding it but 
learn it instead from us. God has placed in your hands the 
Empire: to us he has committed the administration of his 
Church. And as he who would steal the government from 
you opposes the ordinance of God, even so do you fear lest 
by taking upon yourself the conduct of the Church, you 
make yourself guilty of a grave sin. It is written: ‘‘ Render 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God 
the things that are God’s.”*** Therefore it is not per- 
mitted to us to bear rule on earth nor have you the right 
to burn incense. I write this out of anxiety for your 
salvation. 

As for the purport of your letters, this is my resolution. 
I assuredly will not ally myself with the Arians and I 
anathematize their heresy. Nor will I subscribe to the 
condemnation of Athanasius, whom we and the church of 
the Romans and the entire council have pronounced guilt- 
less. You too yourself, when at one time you comprehended 
this, sent for him and allowed him to return with honor to 
his country and his church.”* What excuse is there for this 
great change? ‘The same men who were his enemies then 
are so now and the calumnies they whisper now, — for they 
do not mention them in his presence, — are the same they 
were mouthing about him before you sent for him and the 
same that they circulated about him when they met at the 
council. But when I invited them to appear, as I have just 
said, they were unable to produce their evidence, for if they 
had possessed any, they would not have fled so disgracefully. 
Who then has prevailed upon you, after so long a time, to 
forget your own letters and assurances? Beware and yield 
not to the words of evil men, lest to gain some common 
advantage you make yourself guilty. Here you are serving 

213 Mark, XII, 17. 214 Supra, p. 530. 


580 THE SEE OF PETER 


their advantage but in the day of judgment, you alone will 
have to answer for it. By your aid, they intend to injure 
their personal enemy and propose to make you the minister 
of their wickedness and, through your help, to sow the seeds 
of their accursed heresy in the Church. It is not prudent 
for the gratification of others to cast oneself into open 
jeopardy. Refrain, I beseech you, Constantius, and listen 
tome! It is incumbent upon me to write this and upon you 
not to despise it. 


4. THE APOSTASY OF LIBERIUS 


Ouae Gesta Sunt inter Liberium et Felicem Episcopos, Col- 
lectio Avellana,”’ I. Text. Ed. by O. Gunther, Corpus 
Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XXXV, 1-5. 


In the time of Emperor Constantius, son of Constantine, 
there was a severe persecution of the Christians on the part 
of the impious Arian heretics, with the connivance of Con- 
stantius, who both persecuted Bishop Athanasius for resisting 
the heretics and ordered all other bishops to condemn him. 
And all the prelates everywhere, in dread of their sovereign, 
agreed to do it and they condemned an innocent man with- 
out a hearing. But Liberius, bishop of Rome, and Eusebius 
of Vercellae and Lucifer of Cagliari and Hilary of Poitiers 
refused to endorse the sentence. So these men were sent 
into exile for preserving the faith. Damasus, a deacon of 
Liberius, made a pretense of accompanying him but on the 
journey he took flight and returned to Rome, enticed by his 


215 The Collectio Avellana is a sixth century assortment of documents, gathered 
apparently by some one who expected to use them in the composition of a church 
history. They cover a period of a century, beginning with the one from which 
we take the extract above, and include narratives, letters, imperial edicts, and 
other miscellaneous matter. The account here cited and the petition of Faustinus 
and Marcellinus, from which we quote later, are both productions of men who 
belonged to the Roman party of uncompromising orthodoxy, led at first by Deacon 
Hilary. They were scornful of Liberius for his weakness and broke into open 
revolt against Damasus. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 581 


ambition. However, on the day that Liberius set out into 
exile, all the clergy, that is, the priests and the archdeacon 
Felix and this deacon Damasus and all the officials of the 
church, all in company, in the presence of the Roman people, 
bound themselves by an oath that during Liberius’ lifetime 
they would have no other bishop.”* But the clergy did a 
wicked and improper thing and committed the heinous crime 
of perjury, for they accepted the archdeacon Felix as their 
bishop, after he was ordained to take the place of Liberius. 
This deed displeased all the people and they held aloof from 
his train. 

After two years, the emperor Constantius came to Rome 
and the people asked him for Liberius and he promptly 
granted their request, with the words: ‘“ You shall have 
Liberius and he will return better than when he left you.” 
In this way he indicated Liberius’ submission, by which he 
had joined hands with perfidy. In the third year, Liberius 
returned and the Roman people went out with joy to meet 
him; Felix was branded by the Senate and the people and 
was driven from the city. But a short time later, with the 
support of the clergy who had perjured themselves, he broke 
into the city and undertook to establish himself in the 
basilica of Julius, beyond the Tiber.”’ But the whole 
multitude of the faithful and the nobles of the city drove 

him out again in deep disgrace. 
After eight years, in the consulship of Valentinian and 
Valens, on November 22, Felix died and Liberius had com- 
passion on the clergy who had perjured themselves and re- 
ceived them back in their own offices. Then, on September 
24, in the consulship of Gratian and Dagalaifus, Liberius put 
off mortality. 

216 Jerome, Chronicon, also mentions this oath under the year of Christ 354, 


the thirteenth year of Constantius. 
217 Supra, p. 488, n. 98. 


582 THE SEE OF PETER 


Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 14. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, LX XXII, 1040-1041. 


So the victorious champion of truth went to Thrace, as 
he was commanded. And when two years had elapsed, 
Constantius came to Rome. Then the wives of the men 
of rank and distinction begged their husbands to request 
Constantius to give the shepherd back to his flock, declaring 
that if the men failed to persuade him, they themselves would 
desert them and run away to their great shepherd. But the 
husbands said that they feared the emperor’s resentment. 
‘“‘ For we are men and he will perhaps think it unpardonable. 
But if you ask him, he will at any rate spare you and one 
of two things will happen. Either he will grant your peti- 
tion or, if you fail to persuade him, he will dismiss you 
unharmed.” The noble women took this suggestion and 
appeared before the monarch in their habitual, splendid 
raiment, so that he might recognize their high station from 
their dress and respect and spare them. ‘In this way, they 
approached and entreated him to have pity on a great city, 
deprived of its shepherd and left a prey to the attacks of 
wolves. But he said that the city needed no other shepherd, 
for it possessed a shepherd capable of caring for it. For 
after the great Liberius, one of his loyal deacons had been 
ordained. Felix was his name. He himself maintained 
unsullied the faith proclaimed at Nicaea but he communed 
readily with those who corrupted it. No one of the inhab- 
itants of Rome would enter a house of prayer while he was 
there. And these women told this to the emperor. Then 
he was moved by it and commanded that the best of men 
should be recalled and that both bishops together should 
rule the church.”* But when this edict was read in the 
circus, the mob cried out that the emperor’s decision was 


218 Tt seems clear from this that Theodoret did not know of Liberius’ re- 
cantation. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE se aeee 


just, — for the spectators were divided into two parties, 
with names from their colors, — and one bishop should lead 
one party and the other the other. So they turned into 
ridicule the emperor’s edict and then gave one shout: “ One 
God, one Christ, one bishop!” I have thought best to 
repeat their exact words. After these pious and righteous 
outcries from this Christian people, the godly Liberius re- 
turned. And Felix withdrew and dwelt in another city. 


Liberius, Letters in Exile, Hilary, Fragmenta Historica, 
Series B, VII, 8, 10, 11. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 168-173. 


“‘Liberius to his dearly beloved brethren, priests and 
fellow bishops of the East, greeting. 

For godly fear your holy faith is known to God and to 
men of good will. Inasmuch as the law says: “ Judge 
righteous judgments, ye sons of men,” *” I did not defend 
Athanasius but, because my predecessor, Bishop Julius of 
honorable memory, had received him, I was afraid that I 
might be considered a traitor in some sort. But when, by 
God’s will, I realized that you had been right in condemning 
him, I straightway gave my assent to your judgment. And 
I delivered a letter concerning him to our brother Fortuna- 
tianus to carry to the emperor Constantius. So now that 
Athanasius has been excluded from communion with all of 
us and his official letters are no longer to be accepted by me, 
I assert that I am in peace and harmony with you everyone 

219 The following three letters have often been marked as of doubtful authen- 
ticity. The style is crude and involved and the text evidently faulty. They may 
have been sent out first in Greek and translated for Hilary’s use into Latin. They 
were among the documents collected by Hilary at Constantinople in 359 and seem 
to bear internal marks of genuineness. One other letter attributed to Liberius in 
Hilary’s collection is unmistakably an Arian forgery, Series B, III, 1. It was 
apparently composed to prove that Liberius had broken with Athanasius at the 
beginning of his pontificate, before leaving Rome. But it is not to be reconciled 


with the letters quoted here nor with the rest of our testimony. 
220 Psalms, LVII, 2. 


584 THE SEE OF PETER 


and with all the bishops of the East and throughout the 
provinces. 

Moreover, you may be sure that I am professing the 
true faith in this letter, for our common lord and brother, 
Demophilus, has deigned in his charity to expound to me 
your catholic faith, which was also discussed and expounded 
at Sirmium by many of our brethren and fellow bishops and 
adopted by all who were present. This I have gladly ac- 
cepted and in no particular have I gainsaid it and to it I 
have declared my assent. This I follow and this I uphold. 
I confidently believe that I may entreat your holinesses, 
now that you behold me in hearty agreement with you, to 
put forth your efforts graciously in common council and 
zeal, that I may be released from banishment and return 
to the see which was once divinely entrusted to me.” 


‘“‘ Liberius in exile to Ursacius, Valens and Germinius.”™” 

Whereas I know you are sons of peace and love the con- 
cord and harmony of the catholic Church, therefore, under 
no compulsion whatever, — as I call God to witness, — but 
for the sake of the blessing of peace and concord, which is 
preferable to martyrdom, I approach you with this letter, 
my lords and dearest brethren. I hereby inform your wis- 
dom that I had condemned Athanasius, who was bishop of 
the Alexandrian church, before I wrote to the court of the 
holy emperor that I was sending a letter to the eastern 
bishops. And he has been cut off from the communion of 
the Roman church, as all the priesthood of the Roman church 
is witness. And my sole reason for delaying to send the 
letter with regard to him to our eastern brethren and fellow 
bishops was that my envoys whom I sent earlier from Rome 
to the court and the bishops who had been deported, both 
the former and the latter, might, if possible, be recalled 


from their exile. 
221 Bishop of Sirmium. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 535 


I wish you also to know that I have asked brother For- 
tunatianus to carry to the most clement emperor my letter 
which I wrote to the eastern bishops, that he too might 
know that I, like them, had withdrawn from communion 
with Athanasius. I believe that his reverence will receive 
it thankfully for the blessing of peace. A copy of it I ad- 
dressed also to Hilary, the emperor’s faithful eunuch. You, 
in your charity, will observe that I have acted in a friendly 
and innocent spirit. Wherefore, I approach you with this 
letter and adjure you, by almighty God and Christ Jesus 
his Son, our God and Lord, to go graciously to our most 
clement emperor Constantius and ask that for the blessing 
of peace and concord, in which his reverence always finds 
delight, he may order me to return to the church divinely 
committed to me, so that in his time the Roman church may 
not endure tribulation. By this letter you are to understand 
fairly and honestly, dearest brothers, that I am at peace 
with all you bishops of the catholic Church. Great will be 
the consolation that you will receive in the day of vengeance, 
if through you peace be restored to the Roman church. I 
wish also that through you our brothers and fellow bishops, 
Epictetus and Auxentius,~* may learn that I am in peace 
and ecclesiastical communion with them. I believe that they 
will receive the tidings thankfully. And whoever dissents 
from our peace and concord, which by God’s will have been 
established through all the world, may understand hereby 
that he is cut off from our communion.” 

Again: ‘‘ Liberius in exile to Vincent. 

. . . Lhe plots of evil men, through which I have come 
to this pass, are well known to you. [Pray that the Lord 
will grant me endurance. They have taken from me my 
comfort, my beloved son, the deacon Urbicus.] . 

I have thought best to notify your holiness that I have 


222 These, it will be remembered, were the eastern Arians nominated by 
Constantius to be bishops in Milan and Civita Vecchia. 


586 THE SEE OF PETER 


retired from the struggle over Athanasius and have sent 
letters regarding him to our brethren and fellow bishops of 
the East. Will you, accordingly, because by God’s will you 
are everywhere at peace, assemble all the bishops of Cam- 
pania and inform them of this. Send a letter from the 
meeting as a whole and one from yourself to the most 
clement emperor on the subject of our harmony and peace, 
so that I too may be released from my wretchedness.” 
And in his own hand: ‘‘ God preserve you safe, my 
brother!” Also in his hand and written on the same page: 
‘We are at peace with all the eastern bishops and with 
you. I have absolved myself to God. If you wish me to 
die in exile, you will see. God will be judge between me 
and you.” 


Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, 41. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XXV, 741. 


But Liberius gave way, after he had been two years in 
exile, and subscribed for fear of threatened death. Yet this 
shows only their violence and Liberius’ hatred of heresy and 
support of Athanasius as long as he had a free choice. For 
that which men do under torture, against their original in- 
tention, ought not to be considered the will of these terrified 
persons but rather that of their tormentors.*™ 


Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, 1V,15. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 1149-1154. 


Not long afterward, the emperor came from Rome to 
Sirmium and the bishops of the West sent a deputation and 
he summoned Liberius from Beroea. And in the presence 
of the eastern delegates, with the clergy also who were in 


223 This short excerpt is given to show Athanasius’ attitude toward Liberius’ 
desertion. He speaks of it again in his Apologia, 89. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 587 


attendance at court, he compelled Liberius to confess that 
the Son is not of the substance of the Father. Basil and 
Eustathius and Eleusius ** were there influencing the mon- 
arch to do this, for they had great weight with him. They 
combined at that time in one statement the decrees that 
had been passed at Sirmium against Paul of Samosata and 
against Photinus and the creed that was drawn up at the 
dedication ceremonies of the church at Antioch, on the 
ground that some persons were attempting under cover of 
the word “ homoousios ” to prove that they were heretics. 
They made Liberius sign this and Athanasius and Alexander 
and Severianus and Crescens, who were bishops of Africa. 
Likewise Ursacius and Germinius, bishop of Sirmium, and 
Valens, bishop of Myrsae, and all the rest who were there 
from the East subscribed to it. 

In addition, they procured from Liberius a confession in 
which he denounced those who do not say that the Son is 
like the Father in substance and everything else. For when 
Eudoxius and his party in Antioch, who were championing 
the heresy of Aetius,”* had received the letter of Hosius, 
they started a report that Liberius also had disowned the 
“‘ homoiousios ”’ and was confessing that the Son was unlike 
the Father. 

Then when this had been accomplished by the eastern 
delegation, the emperor permitted Liberius to return to 
Rome. And the bishops in Sirmium wrote to Felix, who was 
then at the head of the Roman church, and to the clergy 
there that they should receive Liberius and that both men 

224 Basil was the successor of Marcellus at Ancyra, Eustathius and Eleusius, 
bishops of Sebaste and Cyzicus respectively. They were hardly more than semi- 
Arians, “ Homoiousians,” opposed at this time to the upholdens of the Nicene 
“ homoousios,” like Liberius, and to the Sabellian Photinus (supra, p. 500), as 
well as to Paul who belittled Christ’s divinity (supra, p. 432). The extreme Arian 
faction, which was to drive them later into codperation with the “ Homoousians,” 
was not yet in control. | 

225 These men were the nucleus of the new, radical development of Arianism, 


the Anomoean party, whose creed Hosius had recently signed and who now tried 
to claim Liberius. Ursacius and Valens joined them. 


588 THE SEE OF PETER 


should administer the Apostolic See and be bishops together 
in harmony and sink the unhappy events of Felix’s ordina- 
tion and the departure of Liberius in oblivion. For the 
people of Rome loved Liberius, as a good and generous man 
and one who had stoutly withstood the emperor for the faith, 
and a serious riot had broken out and reached the pitch of 
bloodshed. Felix lived but a short time afterward ”* and 
then Liberius alone was bishop of the church. This indeed 
was the dispensation of God, that the See of Peter might not 
be dishonored by a government of two heads, which is a 
symbol of discord and contrary to the laws of the Church. 


5. THE ORTHODOX FAITH OF PETER 


Hilary of Poitiers, Commentarius in Matthaeum, XVI, 7. 
Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, IX, 1009-1010. 


[Comment on the confession of Peter, ‘‘ Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the Living God.” | It is clear that the 
confession of Peter deserved a reward, because he discerned 
in a man the Son of God. Blessed is he who was praised 
for understanding and sight beyond mortal eyes, who looked 
not for that which was of flesh and blood but beheld the 
Son of God through revelation of the Father in heaven. 
Worthy was he to receive his commendation, since he was 
the first to recognize that which was in the Christ of God. 
O thou who wert called by thy new name to be the happy 
foundation of the Church, worthy stone of that building, to 
loose the jaws of hell and the gates of Tartarus and all the 
bonds of death! O blessed doorkeeper of heaven, to whose 
power are committed the keys of the eternal entrance, whose 
judgment upon earth is prejudged as authoritative in heaven, 
so that whatever is bound or loosed by it on earth assumes 
the same status under edict of heaven! 


226 Felix lived seven years after Liberius’ return and died only a year before 
him. 


0 SE 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 589 


Ibid., De Trinitate,”*’ VI, 37. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Latina, X, 187-188. 


This faith | Peter’s confession| is the foundation of the 
Church; through this faith the gates of hell are impotent 
against it. ‘This faith holds the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven. Whatever this faith looses or binds on earth is 
bound or loosed in heaven. This faith is a gift by revelation 
from the Father, no false invention of Christ as a creature 
made from nothing, but a confession of the Son of God in his 
proper nature. O wretched stupidity and impious folly, that 
fail to recognize the witness of blessed age ~* and faith, 
that witness being Peter, for whom prayer was offered to 
the Father that his faith fail not in temptation,’ who when 
he had repeated on request his profession of love for God, 
was grieved at the third inquiry that he was so tested, as if 
he were doubtful and wavering, but who was thereby thrice 
accounted worthy, after his three trials by the Lord to 
cleanse him of infirmity, to hear the words: “ Feed my 
sheep ”;**° who, when all the other apostles were silent, 
knew the Son of God by revelation of the Father and by 
his confession, surpassing the bounds of human weakness, 
won the superlative glory of his blessed faith! How are 
we now compelled to interpret his words? He confessed 
Christ as Son of God but you, lying priests of a novel apos- 
tolate, offer me today Christ, a creature, made out of noth- 
ing. What violence do you put upon his glorious words! 
He confessed the Son of God and for that was blessed. This 
is the revelation of the Father, this is the foundation of the 
Church, this is the security of eternity. For this he holds 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, for this his judgments 
on earth are judgments of heaven. He by revelation dis- 


227 This was the work composed between 356 and 359, during Hilary’s exile 
in Asia Minor. Its original title was De Fide adversus Arianos. 

228 “ Beatae senectutis.” Hilary seems to have been thinking of Peter as 
already an old man. 

229 Luke, XXII, 31, 32. 230 John, XXI, 15-17. 


590 THE SEE OF PETER 


closed the sacrament hidden from the ages; he voiced the 
faith, he declared its nature, he confessed God’s Son. He 
who denies it and confesses instead a creature must, first, 
deny the apostolate of Peter, his faith, his blessedness, his 
priesthood, his martyrdom,’ and next, he must realize that 
he is estranged from Christ, inasmuch as Peter by confessing 
him as the Son won all these rewards. 


6. THE RETURN OF LIBERIUS TO ORTHODOX LEADERSHIP 


Liberius, Letter to the bishops in Italy, Hilary, Fragmenta 
Historica, Series B, IV, 1. Text. Corpus Scriptorum 
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXV, 156-157. 


Liberius to the catholic bishops in Italy, Brechus forever 
in the Lord. 

Repentance wipes out the guilt of ignorance. This we 
may learn also from the holy Scriptures. We read that 
godliness is profitable for all things and that discipline of 
the body is inferior to it, although that too has its profitable 
fruits. The nature of the present situation requires us to 
practice godliness. So whoever there may be who carry 
their zeal to the point of destroying by arrogant and cruel 
censure the effect of our reasonable provisions, let them 
consider this, that they are contradicting what apostolic 
authority once affirmed regarding godliness, when they say 
that the men who erred in ignorance at Rimini should not — 
be forgiven.”* They ought by rights to know that a captive 
falls into error and for that reason severity should not be 
thought of. But I, on whom it is incumbent to weigh every- 
thing in moderation, have decided, especially now that all 

_ 281 “ Martyrium.” The word seems here to have the sense of ‘ martyrdom,” 
eee Aaede in the same paragraph, “ martyr” is certainly “ witness.” Supra, 


232 Liberius is, of course, referring to the austere party of Lucifer and Hilary, 
the deacon. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE sor 


the Egyptians and the Achaeans have adopted the same 
opinion and reinstated many, that the persons of whom we 
have just spoken should be forgiven,”** but that the leaders 
should be condemned, since they with equivocal and mali- 
cious subtlety and craft made innocent souls offend by 
drawing a veil before them over the truth and representing 
darkness as light and light as darkness. 

So whoever has felt within him that wily and secret 
pestilential virus of the Arian doctrine but repents of his 
captivity to ignorance at the merciful appeal of our words 
and knows himself profoundly renewed, let him condemn 
and assail vigorously the leaders of it, whose violence he has 
experienced against himself, and let him commit himself 
totally and unreservedly to the apostolic and catholic faith, 
even to the consensus of the synod of Nicaea.“ By that 
profession, even though to some it appears slight and in- 
adequate, he will recover that integrity which he lost by 
guile. But if there is anyone of so callous a mind, —as I 
hardly believe there is, — that he not only denies that one 
who receives the medicine of health is cured but even asserts 
that he is taking poison and virus instead, let him be over- 
ruled by reason and counted among the leaders of deadly 
falsehood and punished by the spiritual might .of the catholic 
Church. | 


Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 12. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 483-4096. 


But when the Homoousians had been forcibly driven out 
[from positions in the eastern church], then the persecutors 
- turned against the Macedonians. And they, in the dis- 


233 Thus far the letter is almost unintelligible, as it stands in the extant Latin 
text. We follow a conjectural, emended text, suggested in J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Latina, X, 714-716. 

234 Liberius’ literary style is never simple. Note the profusion of metaphors 
in this sentence. 


592 THE SEE OF PETER 
comfort of fear rather than of actual violence, sent envoys 
to one another throughout the cities, to explain that they 
must look for shelter to the brother of their emperor and 
to Liberius, bishop of Rome, and that it was better to adopt 
their faith than to commune with Eudoxius. So they sent 
Eustathius of Sebaste, who had been condemned many times, 
and Silvanus of Tarsus in Cilicia and Theophilus of Cas- 
tabala, which is a city of Cilicia. And they instructed them 
not to disagree with the faith of Liberius but to commune 
with the Roman church and to subscribe to the faith of 
‘“‘ homoousios.” “* So these men brought letters from the © 
dissenters at Seleucia and came to old Rome. They did 
not find the emperor, for he was in Gaul, engaged in the 
war there against the Sarmatians. But they delivered their 
letters to Liberius, who was very unwilling to receive them. 
For he said they belonged to the Arian party and could not 
be received by the Church, because they had overthrown the 
faith of Nicaea.’ And they replied that they had repented 
and recognized the truth and had already abjured the faith 
of the Anomoeans and confessed that the Son was in all 
respects like the Father, and that there was no difference 
between likeness and ‘‘ homoousios ” [7.e. sameness of sub- 
stance|. When they said this, Liberius required of them 
a written confession of their belief. And they offered him 
a document in which the very words of the creed of Nicaea 
had been inserted. 

The letters which they had written after holding synods 
in Smyrna in Asia and in Pisidia and Isauria and Pamphylia 


235 Sozomen says that they “ wrote to Liberius, bishop of Rome, and to the 
bishops of the West, on the ground that they had the right and sure faith from 
the apostles and ought above all others to superintend religion, and they asked 
them to assist their delegates with all their power and to advise with them as to 
what must be done in any way they thought best to restore the state of the 
Church.” Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 10. He gives the text of the profession of 
faith presented to Liberius. Jbid., VI, 11. Compare these accounts with that 
given by Basil, infra, p. 655. 

236 It is not strange that Liberius hesitated. He had last seen Eustathius 
among the victorious court party at Sirmium. The creed which he had been 
required to sign there had been a variation of their “ homoiousian ” semi-Arianism. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 593 


and Lycia I have not copied here because of their length. 
But the document which Eustathius and the other envoys 
presented to Liberius runs as follows: 

“ Eustathius, Theophilus and Silvanus to their lord 
and brother and fellow minister Liberius, greeting in 
the Lord. 

| Statement of complete adherence to the Nicene Creed. | 
. . . And if any one after this exposition of our faith, at- 
tempts to bring any accusation against us or against those 
who sent us, let him come with a letter from your holiness 
before the orthodox bishops whom your holiness approves 
and in their presence let him be tried along with us. Then if 
any part of the accusation be substantiated, let the guilty be 
punished.” So with this document Liberius tied the hands 
of the delegates and then he received them into communion 
and dismissed them with the following letter. 

The letter of Liberius, bishop of Rome, to the bishops 
of the Macedonians: 

“ Bishop Liberius and the bishops of Italy and the West 
to their beloved brethren and fellow ministers, Euethius,””’ 
Cyril, . . . Lucius and all the orthodox bishops in the East, 
greeting forever in the Lord. 

The long desired joy of peace and concord, illumined by 
the light of faith, beloved brethren, was brought to us by 
your letter, which you sent us by our honored brethren, the 
bishops Eustathius, Silvanus and Theophilus, especially now 
that they have assured and proved to us that your belief and 
your teaching are in harmony and unison with those of my 
poor self and of all the bishops in Italy and the West. This 
we know to be the catholic and apostolic faith, which re- 
mained pure and unspotted down to the Council of Nicaea. 
This same faith they have professed to hold and in fullness of 
rejoicing they have dispelled every trace and taint of sus- 
picion, for not only by word but also in writing they have 

237 The names of the sixty-four bishops who had written to Liberius. 


594 THE SEE OF PETER 


made a declaration to this effect. We have decided that we 
should append a copy of it to this our letter, so as to leave 
no ground for the heretics to conspire again and stir up 
again the sparks of their malice and set the fierce fires of 
discord to blazing. 

Our honored brethren, Eustathius and Silvanus and 
Theophilus, have now affirmed that you also have always 
held this faith in love and will defend it to the end, namely, 
that faith which was professed by the three hundred and 
eighteen orthodox bishops at Nicaea. 

And even though all the bishops of the West, assembled 
at Rimini, were outdone by the malignant Arians, until 
through over-persuasion or, to be more exact, imperial com- 
pulsion, they condemned or indirectly denied that which is 
the firm foundation of our faith, even so, this piece of 
wickedness has availed the other party nothing. For almost 
all the bishops who were at Rimini and were ensnared or 
deceived on that occasion have now returned to their senses 
and anathematized the profession of the convention of 
Rimini and have subscribed to the catholic and apostolic 
faith which was promulgated at Nicaea. They have come 
into communion with us and are bitterly indignant against 
the doctrine of Arius and against his adherents. And when 
the envoys of your love understood the meaning of that per- 
formance, they subscribed, in your names as well as in their 
own, to the anathema against Arius and against the trans- 
actions at Rimini, which were contrary to the faith promul- 
gated at Nicaea and to which false testimony had led you 
to subscribe. So it has seemed to me fitting to write to you 
in support of those who ask for justice, especially since I 
have learned from the declaration of your envoys that the 
Easterners have returned to their right minds and are in 
accord with the orthodox in the West... . 

[The doctrines of Rimini are now generally repudiated 
and men are emerging ‘ from the darkness of heresy into the 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 595 


divine light of catholic freedom.’ Arians, Sabellians and 
Patripassians are all excommunicate.] .. .” 

With this letter, Eustathius and his companions travelled 
first to Sicily. And there they arranged for the holding of a 
council of the Sicilian bishops and in their presence they pro- 
fessed the faith of ‘“‘ homoousios ” and endorsed the Creed 
of Nicaea and after obtaining from them also a letter of 
similar tenor, they returned to those who had sent them. 
These latter, on receiving the letter of Liberius, sent mes- 
sengers to the bishops of the faith of “‘ homoousios ” through- 
out the cities, summoning them to meet with one accord in 
Tarsus of Cilicia, in order to reaffirm the faith of Nicaea and 
to repudiate all the contentiousness that had arisen since. 
This would probably have come to pass, had not the man 
who had then most influence with the emperor prevented it. 
I mean Eudoxius, who was a bishop of the Arian sect and 
who was much displeased at the news of the council and 
did these men great harm. But Sabinus, in his History 
of Councils,** has told how the Macedonians, through the 
envoys whom they sent, did commune with Liberius and 
confirm the faith of Nicaea. 


DAMASUS 


(366-384) 

Damasus, whose pontificate brings us to the end of this 
chronicle, has been called the greatest of the early Roman 
bishops. He was a man of much practical shrewdness and 
self-assertive energy. He had time and interest to spare for 
enterprises in more than one unusual field, such as archaeology, 
epigraphy and Biblical itext revision, in which we cannot follow 
him.” Yet he quite as clearly lacked that greatness of spirit 


238 A work long since lost. 

239 On some of these enterprises, vide supra, pp. 108, 113. See also Jerome’s 
preface of 383 to his version of the New Testament, contained in every edition 
of the Vulgate. Extracts from this are in J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient 
Church History, pp. 485-486. 


596 THE SEE OF PETER 


that shows so strikingly in his contemporaries, Athanasius, Basil, 
Gregory Nazianzen and Ambrose. His acts, his letters, his 
metrical inscriptions, all betray the same dry, cold temperament 
and are all singularly devoid of any spontaneous generosity of 
feeling, magnanimity of judgment or breadth of vision. His two 
letters to Jerome which we give below, the most personal pieces 
of writing which we have from him, contain some of the questions 
which his reading of the Old Testament suggested to him and 
show his magisterial way of checking up the sacred narrative and 
his impatience with such authors as spent time in discussing 
irrelevant subjects, like geography or philosophy. 

Scholars and refugees, who could be patronized or made useful 
to him, works by which his name might be perpetuated in monu- 
ments about the city, these appealed to him. Great causes, that 
required disinterested, patient effort and far-reaching imagination 
and sympathy fared badly with him. Circumstances gave him 
an unprecedented opportunity to make the See of Rome what 
his forerunners had contended it should be, the head of a united 
Christendom. The principal bishops of the East entreated him 
to assume the leadership in the reconstruction of their shattered 
churches. An imperial decree confirmed to him the appellate 
jurisdiction over the entire episcopate. But he proved incapable 
of rising to the heights of charity or of understanding demanded 
of one who would make himself indeed “ bishop of the bishops.” 
Before his death, the door in the East, which had been held open 
for him to enter, was definitively closed. ‘The emperors seem to 
have grown less whole-hearted in their support. ‘There had al- 
ways been a stubborn party of distrust and disaffection in Italy. 
In spite of his ostentatious activity and splendor, when measured 
by the standard of what he might have been and done, Damasus 
appears as one of those ambitious but short-sighted men who 
never in all their busy lives discover where greatness really lies. 

As bishop, he had to meet two searching tests. The first was 
in the West, where the church, when he took it over, was already 
divided on the issues created by the devious career of his prede- 
cessor, Liberius. A clash of some kind may have been inevitable, 
no matter what policy Damasus represented. Our first three or 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 597 


four extracts reveal the pent-up indignation that burst into 
explosion as soon as occasion offered.**° They reveal also the 
methods which Damasus and his cohorts took to deal with it. 
By force and bloodshed, legal and illegal, he crushed the Ursinians 
at Rome and drove them into exile or hiding. By vigorous demon- 
strations of authority he overawed the Italian bishops. In 378, 
twelve years after his accession, one of his episcopal synods drew 
up a petition to the emperors, in which it reviewed the western 
situation, reported the remnants of opposition that persisted here 
and there, and asked for the confirmation to Damasus of final 
jurisdiction over all bishops and metropolitans everywhere and 
the aid of the State in bringing to justice any who refused to 
submit,*** The emperors obligingly consented and the coercive 
process went on. Three years later, an imperial statute conferred 
upon Damasus the position of supreme exponent of the true faith 
of the holy apostle Peter and ordered every subject of the Empire 
to follow his doctrine.**” Yet, the year before his death, a peti- 
tion presented by two western priests to the emperors proves the 
horror that some who were most orthodox in creed still felt for 
his ruthlessness and violence.*** He had not convinced them nor 
won them over to him with all his power. By this time, indeed, 
the struggle had become almost altogether personal. No one then 
seems to have wanted to undo the restoration of the old apostates 
of Liberius’ day, over which the controversy had first been waged. 
When at length a bishop of cleaner record and more pacific 
temper succeeded Damasus, the rebels gradually laid down their 
arms and harmony became possible once more. 

In the East, on the other hand, Damasus inherited no handi- 
cap from his predecessor and his failure to respond to the needs 
of the churches there was for that reason less excusable and even 
more serious in its results. The letters of Basil, as also the 
extracts we give from other contemporary eastern writers, show 
how self-depreciatory had become by this time the spirit of many 
earnest leaders of eastern Christianity and how sincere was the 
deference they were prepared to pay to him of Rome.*** In every 

240 Infra, pp. 629, 630, 632. 243 Infra, p. 689. 


241 Infra, p. 666. 244 See particularly infra, pp. 645, 652, 666. 
242 Infra, p. 675. 


598 THE SEE OF PETER 


essential of faith they felt that they were now one. They asked 
only that the Roman stretch out a hand of fellowship to them in 
their dire straits, intercede for them with the emperor, send 
commissioners to hear and arbitrate their ecclesiastical disputes, 
and assume, in general, the responsibility incumbent on one to 
whom God had granted the divine gifts of peace and an unerring 
perception of the truth. But ten years of pleading and negotia- 
tion produced no more fruitful results than the dogmatic cham- 
pioning by Damasus of one eastern minority party and his lofty 
refusal to codperate with any others, except at the price of com- 
plete and literal submission in every detail.”*° 

As late as 381, however, Gregory of Nazianzus could still 
dream of bringing music out of the discord of the two great 
choruses, seeing that nothing fundamental separated them, merely 
the jealousies stirred up by rival claimants for the bishoprics. 
His narrative poem, describing the council called at Constanti- 
nople after the accession of Theodosius and the end of govern- 
ment persecution, breathes the pure passion for reconciliation in 
the name of Christ that had burned in the souls of Basil and his 
friends.“* But again the acrimonious influence of Damasus 
worked against it. His delegates arrived late at the council and 
haughtily took it to task for certain technical irregularities in 
eastern procedure. The bishops of Asia, already antagonized 
by Damasus’ arrogant and dilatory treatment of their necessities, 
now broke into angry counter-accusations. Gregory fled home in 
despair. When, a year later, Damasus invited the Easterners to 
reopen the question of the see of Constantinople before him and 
his council at Rome, they replied with a letter which shows how 
their hearts had hardened against him. They were grateful for 
this sudden access of concern for their affairs but they could 
hardly transport themselves all the distance to Italy. Besides, 
their worst trials were now over.”*7 About the same time, Theo- 
dosius published a list of prominent eastern bishops, whose faith 
might be taken as a standard of orthodoxy as well as that of 
Damasus. The supreme opportunity to bring East and West 
together under the presidency of Rome was gone. Yet the East 


245 Infra, pp. 646, 647, 674. 246 Infra, p. 679. 
247 Infra, p. 686. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 599 


was still willing to acknowledge in theory the Roman primacy, as 
it did in the fourth canon of the Council of 381. But the same 
canon created a new local head for all the eastern churches, the 
see of “ New Rome.” 4° 

We have summarized in the foregoing sentences a few of the 
conspicuous features and incidents of Damasus’ administration 
and have called attention to a few of the more notable documents 
from which we quote below. The full story of his acts and 
policies is rather peculiarly complicated, owing to the shifting state 
of parties and of creeds, western as well as eastern, during the 
eighteen years that he occupied the Lateran. For those readers 
who will follow it more closely and who need to get more exactly 
the relationship and bearing of all our material we give our 
customary, amplified discussion in the ensuing pages. To make 
it somewhat clearer we have disposed it under three headings, 
the first covering Damasus’ relations with the churches and clergy 
in Rome and Italy, the second those with the bishops of the 
western provinces outside Italy, and the third those with the 
churches of the East. 


i. Damasus and the Clergy of Rome and Italy 


Damasus’ part in the Roman crisis caused by the banishment 
of Liberius has already been described.**® He owed his election 
as bishop to that uncritical majority which had applauded. Liberius 
‘on his return from exile and had later acquiesced in his lenient 
policy toward the signers of the Rimini creed, the partisans of 
Felix and the delegates from the eastern Homoiousians. That 
the Roman clergy had themselves meanwhile been growing lax 
and worldly in their habits is proved by the edict which the 
emperors ordered read in the Roman churches in the year 370, 
forbidding any monk or other ecclesiastic to visit the house of a 
widow or an heiress, or to receive gifts from a woman, even by 
bequest. That Damasus himself was not altogether free from 
personal reproach is proved by the epithet his enemies applied to 
him, “the ladies’ ear-tickler.” But on the day of his election, 


248 Infra, p. 686. 249 Supra, pp. 580-581. 


600 THE SEE OF PETER 


a party of conscientious objectors, including seven priests and 
three deacons, who found the others too easy-going for their more 
sensitive scruples, met apart in the basilica of Julius (Santa 
Maria in Trastevere), chose the deacon Ursinus for their bishop 
and ordained him on the spot, with the aid of a bishop from 
Tivoli. The ordination of Damasus had been postponed until the 
next Sunday. 

Our excerpts describe, from different standpoints, the bloody 
fracas that ensued. A crowd of Damasus’ adherents marched 
across the Tiber and attacked the church of Julius, killing or 
wounding several Ursinians. They then proceeded with a great 
display of arms to fortify the Lateran against a counter-attack 
and to hold the consecration of Damasus. Riotous bands from 
both sides fought in the streets. The prefect Viventius, after 
some hesitation, determined to recognize Damasus and banished 
Ursinus and the two deacons. But the Ursinian contingent 
refused to come to terms and obstructed the processions of 
Damasus, when he and his train went in parade through the 
city. Damasus appealed to the prefect against their violations of 
order and the seven priests were arrested. Their followers there- 
upon rescued them from the guards and bore them off to the 
massive, new basilica of Liberius (Santa Maria Maggiore) on the 
Esquiline, which they barricaded and converted into a fortress. 
Damasus’ men laid siege at once with axes and fire. Ammianus 
Marcellinus, the pagan historian, says that when the building was 
finally stormed, one hundred and thirty-seven corpses were 


counted on the floor and that the people remained for a long time ~ 


in an ugly mood. 

Through a series of imperial edicts, the text of which we omit 
for brevity’s sake, we may trace the later steps in the story of 
this disturbance.””° The first of these edicts, issued in the sum- 
mer of 367 to the new prefect, Praetextatus, illustrates Valen- 
tinian’s favorite tactics of conciliatory “ laissez faire.” Ursinus 
and his companions are to be released from banishment on the 
sole condition that they do not again break the peace. The 

250 These texts are contained in the so-called Collectio Avellana, 5-12, Corpus 


Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vol. XXXV, pp. 48-54. Supra, p. Sos ; 
215. Their contents are summarized briefly here. 


eS 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 601 


second, a response to a complaint from Damasus that the 
Ursinians still occupy the basilica of Liberius, orders Praetextatus 
to restore the edifice to Damasus “ for peace’s sake.” The third 
edict, dated January 12, 368, is obviously a reply to a discourag- 
ing report from Praetextatus and empowers him to expel Ursinus 
and his ministers from Rome “ for the sake of the peace of the 
eternal city.” They may live hereafter anywhere they please 
except in Rome. Late in the same year, an edict to Olybrius, 
the successor of Praetextatus, mentions tumults occasioned by 
the meetings of dissenters just outside the walls. Such meetings, 
we learn elsewhere, had been taking place in the basilica of St. 
Agnes on the Via Nomentana. All such assemblies are now for- 
bidden within twenty miles of the city. A similar rescript to the 
vicar of the suburban diocese of Rome directs him to cooperate 
with the prefect in enforcing the new regulation. Ursinus himself 
is to be removed into confinement in Gaul. By these firm meas- 
ures quiet seems to have been restored, at least outwardly. Two 
or three years later, Valentinian once more releases Ursinus and 
eight companions from their imprisonment, stipulating merely 
that they shall none of them set foot again in Rome or in its 
vicinity or stir up further agitation, and warning them that if 
they disobey, they will not be treated any longer as Christians 
but as legal outcasts, “ obstreperous disturbers of the public 
tranquillity and enemies of law and religion.” 

Ursinus, however, was a man of resource and implacable 
resolution. By one means or another he contrived to keep 
‘Damasus on tenterhooks for some time longer. Once his party 
petitioned the emperor to summon a council to investigate the 
fitness of ‘‘a murderer ” to hold the chair of Peter. In 376 or 
377, a Jew called Isaac, a temporary convert to Christianity, 
prompted, it was generally believed, by the Ursinians, brought 
a criminal accusation of a grave sort against Damasus.*** The 
city prefect, in whose court the case came up for trial, was un- 
impressed by the episcopal majesty. It suddenly looked as if 


251 The Liber Pontificalis says that the charge was adultery but this is prob- 
ably an error. Damasus was by this time over seventy years of age. It was more 
likely one of excessive cruelty in the treatment of schismatics, such as the other 
complaints against him of which we hear. L. R. Loomis, The Book of the 
Popes, 82. 


602 THE SEE OF PETER 


degradation, if not death, might be in store for the defendant, 
when the young emperor Gratian was prevailed upon to intervene 
and transfer the suit to his own tribunal at Milan. There 
Ambrose and other loyal Catholics procured an acquittal. Isaac 
was deported to Spain as a penalty for libel and Ursinus to prison, 
this time in far-away Cologne. But his followers still continued 
their agitation. In 381, they secured the ear of an influential 
eunuch, Paschasius, and then of the prefect, who in his report 
of that year to the emperors raised again the question of 
Damasus’ standing and conduct. But Ambrose and the council 
of northern bishops at Aquileia, of which he was the leading 
spirit, presented a memorial in protest and once more the un- 
pleasantness was hushed up. 

One member of Ursinus’ party was a bishop Aurelius, who 
held communion with representatives of similar austere groups 
abroad, such as Gregory, bishop of Granada. An ascetic priest, 
Macarius, met his congregation secretly at night, but was seized 
and so brutally mauled that he died at Ostia on the road to 
exile. After the death of Ursinus, in 382 or 383, his adherents 
elected another bishop, Ephesius by name, whom Damasus cited 
before the prefect Bassus as a Luciferian heretic,”? but whom 
Bassus declined to punish on the ground that his schism implied 
no heterodoxy of doctrine.*** It may have been this episode 
that inspired Jerome, then on a close and friendly footing with 
Damasus, to compose his dialogue against the Luciferians, setting 
forth in dark colors all the errors of which they were presumably 


guilty. In the year 383, the last of Damasus’ life, two priests, 


Faustinus and Marcellinus, presented a lengthy petition to the 
emperors Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius, in which they 
rehearsed the iniquities of their various persecutors, in especial 
of “ that extraordinary archbishop ” Damasus, charging him with 
usurpation of regal authority and corruption of the magistrates 
for the purpose of driving good Christians out of Rome. 


252 On Lucifer of Cagliari, vide supra, pp. 537, 538, 551. ; 
253 Beside the edicts directed specifically against Ursinus and his party, there 


were others in existence, prohibiting heretics from meeting, owning houses of as- 


sembly, etc. The earliest of which we hear was issued by Constantine. Eusebius, 
Vita Constantini, III, 64-66. There is reference to another in Codex Theodosianus, 
XVI, s, 4, and a reénactment in ibid., 55. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 603 


There was opposition to Damasus also among the bishops of 
Italy. The synod which he called at Rome in 367, upon the 
anniversary of his ordination, agreed with him to condemn 
Liberius, on what score we are not told.*** But when he proposed 
to the same assembly to condemn his rival Ursinus, they loudly 
refused, insisting that they could not condemn any man without 
a fair trial. When the Ursinian priest Macarius, the victim of 
Damasus’ rough-handed followers, died in Ostia, the local bishop 
gave his body reverent sepulchre in the basilica of a martyr. 
When, after the banishment of Ursinus, Damasus himself tried 
and deposed certain bishops who had notoriously sympathized 
with the schismatics, some others denied his right to adjudicate; 
and two of the deposed culprits, the bishops of Parma and Poz- 
zuoli, returned to their churches in bold defiance of his sentence, 
even after one of them, who had appealed to the emperor, had 
received answer that the Roman’s verdict must be obeyed. It 
is doubtful whether this hostile group had been entirely elimi- 
nated by the time of Damasus’ death. 

Heretics also flourished and made converts in spite of all that 
could be done to suppress them. The Novatianists still preserved 
their separate organization under their own bishop ** and the 
_ African Donatists maintained a church in connection with the 
parent body at Carthage.”* Their bishop, Claudian, could not 
be evicted from Rome, even by an emperor’s ordinance. It was, 
in fact, difficult to establish satisfactory relations with Africa at 
all, for Restitutus, bishop of the regular community at Carthage, 
who had been so conspicuous at Rimini,’ refused to abjure the 
Rimini creed or to participate in the general retreat to the plat- 
form of Nicaea. Damasus sent instructions to have him tried 
by a synod, but neither he nor the African church paid any at- 
tention to this communication nor would the emperor Valen- 
tinian risk the dangers of civil interference. 


254 Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine. P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Roma- 
norum, (1885), Vol. I, p. 37. 

255 Supra, pp. 382, 426. Socrates says that until the time of Celestine I 
(422-432) “the Novatianists flourished exceedingly in Rome, having many churches 
there and collecting large congregations.” Historéa Ecclesiastica, VII, 11. 

256 Supra, pp. 450, 466. 

257 Supra, Pp. 547. 


604 THE SEE OF PETER 


However, these domestic trials could be overridden after a 
fashion. Damasus could neither soften nor appease his adver- 
saries nor was he quite strong enough to root them out of Rome 
and Italy by force. But with the help of his brawny agents and 
the city magistrates he could break up their illegal congregations 
and compel them to go more or less into hiding. The Italian 
bishops might mutter restive criticisms behind his back but gradu- 
ally he got the majority well in hand. He called them more often 
to synods than any one in his position had done before. At least, 
there are more records of synods under him than under any of 
his predecessors. Jaffé lists seven to which allusions are made 


by contemporary writers. The first, which at one moment threat- — 


ened to become mutinous, has already been mentioned. For some 
years afterwards, Damasus does not seem to have raised the 
subject of Ursinus. But in his second synod, in 368 or 369, he 
did procure the condemnation of that pair of veteran mischief- 
makers and turncoats, Ursacius and Valens,’* a popular measure 
one would certainly suppose. 

In his third synod, a gathering of ninety bishops from Gaul 
as well as Italy, held in or about 370, he expounded the dogma of 
the Trinity for the benefit of those who might be hazy as to the 
exact orthodox position, and carried through the condemnation of 
Auxentius, the elderly Arian, whom Constantius had installed at 
Milan some twenty-five years before.” Valentinian had already 
ruled that for peace’s sake Auxentius should be left undisturbed 
as long as he lived. It required, therefore, some daring to de- 
nounce the bishop of the northern capital, under the imperial 
protection. Damasus, however, did not take this step until after 
some bold, local bishops of Venetia and Gaul had drawn up a 
protest against Auxentius’ continuance in office. He referred, 
indeed, to their action by way of justifying his own. Athanasius 
too had been pressing him to make a definite stand against the 
Arians who still remained in the western provinces. The letter 
which went out from this synod to the East denied also the 


258 Supra, Pp. 529, 531, 533, 564. Athanasius, Epistola ad Afros, 10. 

259 Supra, p. 538. The letter from the synod to the eastern bishops is quoted 
infra, pp. 634-636. For the “tomus” or statement of dogma, see C. J. Hefele, 
Histoire des Conciles, Vol. I, pt. II, pp. 980 sq.; Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, 
VI, 23; Theodoret, Historia Ecclestastica, II, 17. 


Lee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 605 


validity of the proceedings of the apostate Council of Rimini on 
the ground that they had never been ratified by the Roman 
bishop, ‘‘ whose judgment should have been asked first of all.” 
The fourth, fifth and seventh synods of Damasus were occu- 
pied chiefly or altogether, for anything we know to the contrary, 
with questions arising out of the condition of the eastern churches 
and the heterodox tendencies in eastern theology. But the sixth, 
convoked in 378, soon after Damasus’ deliverance from the 
menace of Isaac, bore striking witness to the ascendancy which 
he had by that time established over his colleagues in the penin- 
sula. It addressed a long petition to the emperors on behalf 
of “our holy brother Damasus,” reviewing first the perils to 
which he had been exposed from the Ursinians and other an- 
tagonists and going on to request that all bishops who refused 
to submit to the judgment of his or any other similar catholic 
court should be compelled by the local prefect to appear and 
undergo sentence. All Italians should be remanded to Rome; 
more distant bishops to their metropolitans. Any metropolitan 
under accusation should be referred immediately to Rome or to 
judges approved by Rome. An appeal to Rome should also be 
allowed from any metropolitan suspected of prejudice. In short, 
the Roman bishop should be granted direct jurisdiction over other 
metropolitans and an appellate jurisdiction over the entire epis- 
copate. A judicial hierarchy should be erected with the aid and 
countenance of the State.*°° As for the Roman bishop himself, 
he should surely never be put in a position inferior to those 
“whom he excels in the prerogative of his apostolic See and who 
are subject to the public courts from which your edict removed 
him.” If he should ever again be involved in a suit, not strictly 
ecclesiastical by nature, he should be entitled to carry it straight- 
way to the court of the emperor. In other words, he should be 
260 Note the difference between the method of application of the appellate 
power as proposed here and by the Council of Sardica. Supra, pp. 520-521. 
Constantine had given bishops in general the right to hear all kinds of suits and 
had ordered state officials to assist in the execution of their verdicts. In 367, 
Valentinian I had published a rescript which conferred upon the Roman bishop an 
extended jurisdiction of some kind over other bishops. But the text of this rescript 
has been lost. Its existence is indicated by the wording of the petition of 378 and 


of the emperors’ answer. Ambrose also alludes to it. Epistolae, XXI, 12 and I5. 
It was evidently less definite and far-reaching than the edict of 378. 


606 THE SEE OF PETER 


exempt from the jurisdiction of the city prefect. Nothing less 
than the highest civil tribunal should be competent to try him. 

The reply of the emperors was conveyed in a rescript of the 
same year to the vicar Aquilinus. It was favorable in tone but 
cautious. They sanctioned the use of state officials to enforce the 
centralized, judicial control of Damasus over the Church, provided 
only that he did not exercise it too harshly or inflict penalties 
worse than exclusion from the city in which the offender had 
held office, and also that he did not reopen cases once settled in 
his court. They tacitly, however, declined to remove him per- 
sonally from the authority of the city magistrates, who were 
merely directed to refuse in the future to entertain accusations 
brought against him by persons of notoriously low character. 

The ablest of all the younger generation of Italian churchmen 
lent his growing influence on principle to support the dignity of 
the See of Rome. Ambrose, elected bishop of Milan when 
Auxentius died in 374, was a son of one of the prominent Roman, 
Christian families. In his childhood, he had watched the ladies 
of his household wait upon the bishop Liberius and kiss his hand 
and had mimicked the bishop’s stately bearing and tried to make 
his young sister kiss his own hand.** As bishop of Milan, he 
regarded it as his unquestionable duty to champion Roman pres- 
tige against all attacks. “They have not the inheritance of 
Peter,” he wrote of the Ursinians, “‘ who have not Peter’s seat 
but rend it by wicked schism and who, furthermore, deny in 
their rebelliousness that sins can be forgiven in the Church, even 
though it was said to Peter: ‘I will give unto thee the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven.’’’ *°? 

His own impressive personality and strategic post at the courts 
of Gratian and Valentinian II made Ambrose often, to be sure, a 
factor of greater importance in the affairs of Italy at large than 
the more remote and less prepossessing Damasus could be. Occa- 
sionally also he took the initiative in ecclesiastical business as 
none but a Roman bishop or an emperor had ever yet done. 


261 Paulinus, Aurelius Ambrosius, the biography of Ambrose by his secretary. 
On Ambrose, see also supra, p. 183. 

262, De Penitentia, I, 7, 33. The sin here referred to especially is the sin of 
apostasy at Rimini. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 607 


Through his instrumentality, apparently, a council of bishops 
from Upper Italy,*** Africa, Gaul and the Balkan Peninsula was 
called at Aquileia, in 381, to settle the status of Arianism in the 
Illyrian and Danubian provinces, to which Damasus had, it 
seems, given insufficient attention. The prelates of the East were 
invited to this council but they were then in the midst of their 
own at Constantinople and sent their regrets. Damasus neither 
deputed any representative from Rome nor encouraged the 
bishops of his vicinity to take part. Yet even this assembly did 
not fail to express its respect and concern for the Roman bishop. 
Beside deposing two Danubian bishops, it sent a protest to 
Gratian on Damasus’ behalf against Ursinus, who, it declared, 
should not be allowed to continue harassing ‘the Roman church, 
the head of the whole Roman world, and the sacred faith of the 
apostles, whence issue the laws of our venerable communion for 
everyone.” **** It sent also a letter to the eastern sovereign, 
Theodosius, asking him to summon a general council to discuss 
the disputed sees in his dominion. 

A few months later, a synod held at Milan under Ambrose’s 
own presidency sent a vigorous appeal to Theodosius against the 
action of the eastern bishops, who at their council in Constanti- 
nople had rejected one would-be head of the church in that city 
and ordained another. “It was the rule and custom of the 
Fathers to do as Athanasius of holy memory and later Peter, both 
bishops of the Alexandrian church, and many other Easterners 
did, that is, to fly to the judgment of the church of Rome, Italy 
and all the West. .. . Either he who was first ordained should 
return to Constantinople or else a council of us and the Easterners 
should be held in the city of Rome to consider the two ordina- 
tions.” *** In the spring of 382, Ambrose wrote once more to 
Theodosius in the name of a local synod to insist that the West 
had a right to ascertain with whom it ought to be in commun- 
ion.”** Damasus perhaps wrote soon afterward to the same 


263 Upper Italy or “the diocese of Italy” was not considered part of the 
ordinary metropolitan jurisdiction of the Roman bishop, which included, as we 
have seen, only “suburbicarian ” or Central and Southern Italy. With Ambrose, 
the bishops of Milan begin to assume a metropolitan responsibility for the North. 

263a This and the next letter are included among the Epizstolae of Ambrose, 
nos. XI and XII. 

264 Ambrose, Epistolae, XIII. 264a Ambrose, Epistolae, XIV 


608 THE SEE OF PETER 


effect ?*° and Gratian may have added his endorsement. At all 
events, Theodosius presently agreed to call the eastern bishops to 
meet with the western at Rome in 382, to debate again the prob- 
lem of the see of Constantinople. 

This council went through the form of meeting, although it 
had no effect upon the eastern situation, as we shall see. But, 
at least, it brought Damasus and Ambrose together in person 
and gave Damasus a confidence in Ambrose’s loyalty and in- 
tegrity which he seems not to have felt before. When, in that 
same year, the pagan members of the Roman Senate began their 
agitation for the repeal of Gratian’s edict ordering the removal 
of the statue and altar of Victory from the Senate House, “ holy 
Damasus, bishop of the Roman church, a priest elected by the 
will of God, sent to me [Ambrose] the memorial which the great 
band of Christian senators drew up, declaring that they had not 
authorized any such enterprise,” and Ambrose assumed the role 
of spokesman for the church of Rome to Valentinian IT.**° 


ii. Damasus and the Western Churches outside Italy 


We know less of Damasus’ relations with the western bishops 
beyond Italy. Of Restitutus, bishop of Carthage, we have al- 
ready spoken. Acholius of Thessalonica was appointed by 
Damasus as his vicar in East Illyricum*** and acted on more 
than one occasion as the trusty informant and lieutenant of Rome. 


In Gaul, Hilary of Poitiers died in the year of Damasus’ acces- 


sion. His friend Martin, however, became bishop of Tours in 
374, and although no such theologian and writer as Hilary, threw 
the weight of his wide reputation for saintliness on the side of 
orthodox obedience. 

From Spain came, at the outset, reports of a temporary 
schism of the Luciferians, headed by Gregory, bishop of Gra- 
nada,**’ which annoyed Damasus for a few years but which ap- 


265 G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, IU, 
427 

266 Ambrose, Epistolae, XVII, 10. Ambrose’s famous addresses to Valentinian 
on this subject are printed among his Epistolae, nos. XVII and XVIII. 

266a B. J. Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461, Vol. II, p. 328, n. 5. 

267 Infra, p. 689 and n. 396. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 609 


peared to die out after Gregory’s death. Yet not long afterward, 
a more serious movement toward extreme asceticism in Christian 
life arose in the western provinces under the inspiration of a 
gifted preacher, Priscillian.**° Hydatius, metropolitan of Lusi- 
tania, sent an account of it to Damasus. The latter replied in 
rather vague and discreet terms, laying down simply a few gen- 
eral principles to be adopted in dealing with zealots. If they 
were accused before a Spanish synod, they should not be pro- 
scribed on hearsay evidence alone but should be allowed a chance 
to explain and defend themselves. 

In 380, such a synod met at Saragossa under the presidency 
of Hydatius and passed canons prohibiting the kind of excesses 
of which the Priscillianists were reputed to be guilty but specify- 
ing no offender by name. The Priscillianists, undeterred, con- 
tinued to make proselytes and within a short time secured the 
election of Priscillian himself to the bishopric of Avila. Two 
other Spanish bishops also became members of the sect. These 
three now attempted to rid themselves of the hostile Hydatius 
by denouncing him on several scandalous counts to the episcopal 
body of Spain. Hydatius appealed for assistance to Italy, but 
this time to the emperor Gratian. Thanks to the help of Am- 
brose, he obtained an edict against ‘“‘ the false bishops and the 
Manicheans” *** in Spain. Priscillian and his two associates 
next went in person to Milan with testimonials from their people, 
clearing them from the aspersions of error in doctrine, and dis- 
played these to the quaestor. They then journeyed down to 
Rome to ask Damasus, “the senior and first over all,” to sum- 
mon Hydatius to be tried before him, as he was fully empowered 
to do by the legislation of 378. Damasus, however, not daring 
perhaps to assert his appellate authority where the emperor had 
_ become involved and ignoring the very principles he had pre- 


268 On the early Priscillianists, see Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, II, 46-51; 
also the letter from Priscillian to Damasus, from which we quote a passage below. 
L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, Vol. I, pp. 418-435, gives 
further bibliography. 

269 The Manichean faith, a late form of Oriental dualism, had been intro- 
duced into the Empire toward the end of the third century. Diocletian proscribed 
it on pain of death, and the Christian emperors made occasional efforts to sup- 
press it. The Priscillianists were accused of a bent toward Manicheanism. Vide 
J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, pp. 375-385. 


610 THE SEE OF PETER 


viously preached to Hydatius, refused to receive or hear them. 
One of the three Spaniards died at Rome; the other two returned 
with their appeal to Milan, where they finally obtained a permit 
from a master of offices to go back unmolested to their sees in 
Spain. For the time being they were safe. When, a little later, 
another bishop, Ithacius, endeavored to bring suit against them 
before the praetorian prefect of Gaul, they procured a new order 
from Milan to the effect that they should not be tried outside 
Spain. Not until after the death of Gratian, were the Priscil- 
lianist leaders haled before the bishops of Gaul, whence they 
made their disastrous appeal to the new emperor Maximus, 
at Trier. 

An emperor might and did upon occasion, as we have seen, 
contravene Damasus’ authority but no other western dignitary, 
lay or ecclesiastical, outdid him in grandeur. Contemporary 
references to him, such as those scattered through our selections 
below, lay constant stress upon his magnificence. The prefect 
Praetextatus, when urged by him to become a Christian, answered 
in meaning jest: “‘ With pleasure, if you will make me bishop of 
Rome.” **° The pagan Ammianus Marcellinus thought it quite 
natural that men who cared for pomp and splendor should fight 
with every weapon at command for the post of the Roman 
bishop, who exceeded even royalty in his sumptuous extrava- 
gance. ‘The letters of Basil, of which we shall speak again later, 
contain more than one ironical comment on him “ who is lofty 
and arrogant and high enthroned and for that reason unable to 
hearken to people on earth who tell him the truth,” who, as he 
says, reminds one of the words of Diomed concerning Achilles: 


‘“‘' Thou shouldest not entreat the lofty son of Peleus 
Nor offer countless gifts; he’s proud enough.” 


The gulf was widening between the bishop of Rome and the 
ordinary bishops of the provinces, a gulf filled high with stateli- 
ness and power. 


270 Jerome, Contra Iohannem Hieros, 8. Quoted by L. Duchesne, Early 
History of the Christian Church, Vol. Il, p. 364. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 611 


lil. Damasus and the Churches of the East 


In the eyes of the eastern Christians, the position of Damasus 
stood for everything that was strong, free and enviable. For the 
first twelve years of his pontificate, 366 to 378, they themselves 
were enduring the oppressive persecution of the Arian emperor 
Valens, while the West was basking in the favors of the orthodox 
Valentinian I and of his son Gratian. Athanasius of Alexandria, 
the aged ally of the Roman bishops, who, for reasons that we 
know, had held but scant intercourse with Liberius, promptly 
opened correspondence with Liberius’ successor, with the aim 
of impressing upon him his duty, as the new standard-bearer 
of the Nicene faith, to cleanse his flock from the last remnants 
of Arianism. When, at length, Damasus and his bishops had 
passed their sentences upon Ursacius, Valens and Auxentius, 
the most conspicuous survivors of the Arian invasion of the West, 
and their churches seemed, as a whole, stabilized on the right 
foundation, the patient exponents of the same faith in the East 
allowed themselves to hope that Damasus now would imitate the 
example of Julius and exert himself to succor his brothers every- 
where in the Empire. 

Within the eastern church, the doctrinal situation was some- 
what less problematical than it had been in Julius’ day, thirty 
years before. The strength of the Arian movement was obviously 
dwindling, even while yet it enjoyed the support of Valens, the 
emperor. Slowly, of its own accord, the East was habituating 
itself to the Nicene view of the divinity of Christ and the unity 
of the Triune God. The chief new development in doctrine of 
these years was Sabellian, the opposite of Arian, in tendency. 
Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea, convinced of the necessity of 
preserving the unity of Jesus as an individual, began to teach 
that he had not two minds but one, a divine one, even while he 
dwelt within a human body and spirit.*” 

In 370, a valiant leader for the Trinitarians appeared in the 
person of Basil, called the Great, bishop of Caesarea, the capital 


271 Vide J. Draseke, Apollinarios von Laodicea (Texte und Untersuchungen 
zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Vol. VII). 


612 THE SEE OF PETER 


of the province of Cappadocia in Eastern Asia Minor. By birth 
and education Basil came of the old, mild wing of the Homoiou- 
sian party, that had by now drawn distinctly away from the 
pronounced Arians and was professing its acceptance of the dogma 
of Nicaea with merely the addition of a qualifying clause regard- 
ing the three Persons or Hypostases. His personal reputation 
for holiness and learning was so high that even Valens did not 
venture to disturb him but bestowed upon him a tract of land as 
a site for his hospital and other institutions of charity. Else- 
where, however, the Catholics and those who like Basil might be 
called Neo-Catholics, all of whom were unwilling to sign the creed 
of Rimini-Seleucia, were still ruthlessly excluded from their sees. 
Meletius of Antioch, who had also come originally from the 
Homoiousians and toward whom Basil felt as a brother, had 
been forced to flee and the churches in his city were in the hands 
of the Arianizers. Basil himself, surveying the scene from his 
outpost in Cappadocia, saw but a single channel through which 
help might come to the unhappy Christians of the East, where 
heretics and persecutors were still outwardly triumphant and even 
those who aimed at orthodoxy were held apart from one another 
by shades of past differences and memories of old grievances. 
Could the East be brought again into closer relationship with the 
West, it might not only reap immediate benefits of spiritual and 
material aid but it might also in the process forget its own sharp 
divisions and learn how better to be at peace within itself. 

Basil had no near acquaintance with western circles but he 
knew one Easterner to whom the West was familiar ground, 
namely Athanasius. In 371, the year after his own ordination, 
he wrote to the Alexandrian to suggest that he stir up Damasus 
to take a more lively interest in the fate of his eastern brethren 
and, as a first step in the programme of pacification, recognize 
Meletius as bishop of Antioch in preference to either the bigoted 
Paulinus or his heterodox rivals.2” A little later, a deacon, 
Dorotheus, of the congregation of Meletius, came to Basil with 
messages from his chief and a western letter-bearer arrived with 
news of the condemnation of the Arian bishops at Rome. The 


272 Supra, p. 550. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 613 


result was a more positive determination on Basil’s part to start 
a concerted appeal to the church of the West. He wrote eagerly 
to Meletius and Athanasius, begging them to cooperate. Doro- 
theus, who seemed well qualified for the enterprise, might, he 
thought, go by way of Antioch and Alexandria to Rome with 
letters from all the orthodox-minded prelates of Asia and Egypt, 
in which they should ask for a western commission of wise and 
peaceable men to meet the eastern bishops in council, ascertain 
on the spot who were the rightful heads of the churches and 
renew the old brotherly connections that had lapsed. In par- 
ticular, the commission should provide for the recognition of one 
man as catholic bishop of Antioch. Antioch, once healed, would, 
like a sound head, do much to restore the eastern body. He 
himself gave Dorotheus a letter to Damasus, reminding him of 
the benevolence of Roman bishops in the past toward the East 
in seasons of distress and requesting him to send them envoys 
on his own authority, if there were difficulty in persuading a 
western synod to act. 

The first hitch in these negotiations occurred at Alexandria. 
Athanasius, while on hearty terms of communion and friendship 
with Basil and, like him, profoundly anxious for harmony, had 
selected Paulinus as his candidate for the bishopric of Antioch. 
_ Naturally, therefore, he did not wish to see Dorotheus, one of 
Meletius’ deacons, sent as the common representative to Rome. 
Dorotheus got no farther than Alexandria and presently returned 
to Cappadocia. Meanwhile, however, one Sabinus, a deacon from 
Milan, had appeared in Egypt with a letter from the Roman synod 
of 370, containing among other things the Roman statement of 
faith, in which the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in deity, 
image and substance was emphatically declared. This letter and 
its bearer Athanasius forwarded to Basil, as if to show him what 
was the drift of sentiment in western quarters. Basil sent back 
by Sabinus two letters, one to the brethren and bishops of the 
West and one to Valerian of Aquileia, metropolitan of Illyria, 
repeating his entreaties for aid. A third letter was drawn up by 
a synod of thirty-two bishops, headed by Meletius, more reproach- 
ful and less tactful and conciliatory than Basil’s but no less 


614 THE SEE OF PETER 


earnest in pointing out the crying necessity for western assist- 
ance. ‘‘ Do not permit the faith to be extinguished in the regions 
where first it shone!”? The West has received from the Lord the 
admirable gift of discernment between falsehood and truth. Let 
it guide the East now out of its gloom! 

With these letters Sabinus returned to Italy. A year passed 
without a word of response. Meanwhile Athanasius died and the 
church of Alexandria elected his brother Peter to fill his place. 
Basil promptly recognized him, as also did Damasus. But the 
emperor Valens did not see fit to extend to him the immunity he 
bad granted to Athanasius in his last years. The troops and the 
Arians burst once more into the churches and amid violence and 
outrage set up an Arian bishop. The clergy who refused to 
acknowledge him were deported to prison or the desert or the 
mines. Among them went also the Roman deacon sent by 
Damasus to congratulate Peter on his accession. Peter himself 
took ship to Rome, as his brother had done in the days of Julius, 
and met a hospitable reception from Damasus, who seems to have 
welcomed the opportunity to play protecting host in his turn to 
a distinguished exile.*”* He listened also to Peter’s views on 
eastern affairs and learned from him to prefer the irreconcilable 
Paulinus to the more tolerant Meletius at Antioch and to look 
with a tinge of suspicion at all the ex-Homoiousians, even at Basil 
himself.?7* 

In the summer of that year, he at last despatched a messenger 
to Asia, one Evagrius, a native of Antioch, who had accompanied 
the stalwart Eusebius of Vercellae to Italy eleven years before.*” 
Evagrius brought back with him as unsatisfactory all the letters 
which Basil and the Asiatics had sent by Sabinus the previous 


273 Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 22. See also, Socrates, Historia 
Ecclesiastica, IV, 37. 

274 There are various allusions to Peter’s presence at Rome, one of which is 
made by Basil below. Jerome’s is interesting. ‘It was from some priests of 
Alexandria, from Pope Athanasius and later from Peter, who fled for refuge to 
Rome, as the safest haven for their communion, to escape the persecution of the 
Arian heretics, that she [Marcella] heard of the life of the blessed Anthony, then _ 
still alive, and of the monasteries in the Thebaid, founded by Pachomius, and of 
the discipline of virgins and widows.” Epistolae, 127, Ad Principiam. Socrates, 
op. cit., IV, 22. Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, 19. Jerome, in another 
place, accuses Basil of pride. He may have heard that accusation at Rome. 
Chronica. 

275 Supra, p. 551. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 615 


year, and a draft of a creed which must be signed without the 
alteration of a single word by everyone who desired communion 
with Rome; also a message to the effect that a deputation of 
eastern bishops must first appear at Rome before any western 
commissioners could be expected to visit the East. At Antioch, 
Evagrius joined the Paulinians, refused to commune with the 
Meletians and evaded Dorotheus, who tried to get an interview 
with him. Basil heard this news in the midst of correspondence 
with Meletius on the subject of another letter, which he had 
thought of sending to the West by a priest, Sanctissimus, who 
had been travelling about to collect the signatures of clergy of 
the orthodox camps. It wasacruel disappointment. Basil never 
hoped for humanity from Damasus again, although he did not 
yet relinquish the idea of arousing the sympathies of other bishops 
in the West. 

Soon after this, a priest Vitalis, who as a Meletian had gone 
to Rome from Antioch but who at Rome had identified himseli 
with the Paulinians, returned to the East with a letter to Paulinus 
from Damasus of formal recognition and confidence.” Almost 
immediately, however, a rumor reached Damasus that led him to 
fear that Vitalis’ orthodoxy was not all that it should be. He 
sent Paulinus a hurried note of warning by a second messenger, 
following it quickly by a third letter, in which he enclosed a 
formula for Paulinus to present to Vitalis and to men like him 
before admitting them to his communion. The dictatorial tone 
of these dispatches gave no offense to Paulinus and his adherents, 
who were, on the contrary, enormously elated over their recogni- 
tion. Basil himself acknowledged that they had received “ 
august and impressive testimony in their favor.” Yet not on 
that account would he abandon Meletius. ‘I have never taken 
communion,” he wrote to Epiphanius, “ with any one of those 
who have since been introduced into that see, not because I look 
on them as unworthy but because I see no reason for condemning 
Meletius,’’ who has been a brave defender of the faith since the 
days of Constantine.’ 

276 The text of Damasus’ first letter to Paulinus has not been preserved. 


A creed which he sent to Paulinus is in Theodoret’s Historia Ecclesiastica, V, It. 
277 Basil, Epistolae, CCLVIII. 


616 THE SEE OF PETER 


He and his party now searched about for a representative to 
send to Rome with Sanctissimus. At first they considered Basil’s 
brother, the gentle and scholarly Gregory of Nyssa, but Basil was 
sure that a more practical and sophisticated person would be 
better fitted to cope with a man like Damasus. In the end, they 
settled again upon the deacon Dorotheus and gave him letters to 
the western church at large and to the bishops of Italy and Gaul, 
in particular, and also a creed upon which they had by this time 
agreed among themselves. In the letters they explained that they 
could not forsake their persecuted flocks to go to the West, drew 
Once more a picture of their unhappy plight and begged for a 
delegation to come and see for itself, speak the word of com- 
passion and fellowship they were longing to hear and intercede 
with Valens for their relief. 

This time the rebuff was at least less frigid. The Roman 
synod of 375 gave Dorotheus an audience and sent back a speedy 
reply.” 
theology and condemned strictly everything that leaned toward 
Arianism, Sabellianism or Apollinarianism.*” It was evident that 
they considered the eastern creed not explicit enough on these 
momentous matters. They also went on to say that no one who 


had transgressed the canonical rules for ordination of a bishop - 


could be readily taken into communion. ‘This was clearly a move 
to bar out Meletius, who had once been elected bishop of Sebaste, 
although he had not retained the office. “As for relieving the 
injustices from which you suffer,” the letter wound up, “ our 
brother Dorotheus will undoubtedly explain everything to you 
by word of mouth. We have not been failing in effort, as he 
himself .is witness.” But the influence of Damasus and Peter 
was plain enough. No Westerners were to come to the East and 
no intercourse would be held with Meletius. On Dorotheus’ re- 
appearance in Cappadocia, he told Basil that Peter had thor- 


278 We have not the full text of this letter, only a fragment, printed in J. P.. 


Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. XIII, pp. 352-354. 

279 Rufinus says, in speaking of Apollinarius: “ His theory was first rejected 
in the city of Rome by a council convened by Damasus and by Peter, bishop of 
Alexandria, with the verdict that whoever declared that the Son of God, who was 
both very God and very man, was lacking in either humanity or divinity should 
be adjudged an alien from the Church.” Historia Ecclesiastica, I, 20. 


In it they reviewed again all the vexed points of current 


oe x * 
i 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 617 


oughly convinced Damasus that both Meletius and Eusebius, 
another of the old Homoiousians banished by Valens, still be- 
longed among the Arians and that he himself had been so ex- 
asperated by Peter’s baseless insinuations that he had used 
unbecoming language to the Egyptian archbishop. 

Basil, however, found some slight encouragement in the fact 
that his party and the Roman assembly were at any rate on 
speaking terms. In 377, he sent Dorotheus again to Rome with 
a letter addressed, ‘‘To the Westerners,” containing a warm 
acknowledgment of their communication and a full and pains- 
taking analysis of the conditions as they actually existed in the 
eastern churches. The cause of the Arians, he said, was already 
lost, although in many places they were momentarily held in 
power by Valens. There was really no need of repeating the old 
objurgations against them. The men who now constituted the 
true menace to the Church were those who remained in it and 
kept it in ferment, whose tenets were not yet generally branded 
as erroneous but were everywhere a disrupting element, fatal to 
concord. Such men were, first, Eustathius of Sebaste,**° whom 
Liberius had helped to reinstate in his see and who consorted 
with the extreme Homoiousians who rejected the Nicene creed; 
second, Apollinarius, who denied the humanity of the mind of 
Christ; and, third, Paulinus of Antioch, whose rigid addiction to 
the letter of Nicaea had led him to compromise with the Sabellian 
Marcellus.*** If the West would only employ its great authority 
to demand an unequivocal and uniform standard of faith impar- 
tially from everyone as the price of its communion and would 
repudiate all recusants, whatever their pretenses, the scattered 
multitude of eastern Catholics would rally to it with one accord. 
Even without a council, much might be accomplished by corre- 
spondence and messengers. Once more Dorotheus came before 
a Roman synod with his letter and explanations. But the West- 
erners, controlled by Damasus, were still cool and distrustful. 
They would not, they declared, pass sentence on individuals. 
None of the three whom Basil accused had ever been tried and » 

280 On Eustathius, vide supra, pp. 5847, so2 ff. 


281 Marcellus himself had died about 375, so there was no longer any need of 
bringing up his personal case. Supra, pp. 504, M. 117, 525. 


618 THE SEE OF PETER 


the Apostolic See could not condemn them unheard. It would 
and did only repeat its general anathemas on notorious heresies. 

The reply sounded final, yet within another year a Roman 
synod, startled, perhaps, by reports of the rapid spread of Apol- 
linarianism, met and denounced by name both Apollinarius and 
his most prominent disciple, Timothy, bishop of Berytus. It was 
the last event of importance at Rome at which Peter of Alexandria 
officiated. For in August, 378, the emperor Valens was killed in 
battle with the Visigoths and Gratian, the western Augustus, 
the friend and pupil of Ambrose, became sole sovereign of the 
entire Empire. One of his first acts in this capacity was to order 
the recall of all the banished clergy. The Arian appointees of 
Valens fled in many places before spontaneous uprisings of the 
populace and left the churches to the returning Catholics. Peter 
hurried back to Egypt and Meletius to Antioch, albeit in that 
city the Arians were still sufficiently strong to keep possession 
of the cathedral edifice. Basil lived just long enough to see the 
end of tyranny, though not the union of the churches. On 
January 1, 379, he died, worn out prematurely with anxiety and 
labor.?*? 

A little before his death, he had joined in a third request to 
Rome, to beg again that some decisive action might be taken 
against the party of Apollinarius. We have the answer of 
Damasus, addressed a few months later to the bishops of the 
East, more superior and condescending in tone than anything he 


had yet sent them. Twice he called them his “ honored sons,” 


as if to impress upon them the fact that they were not his 
equals.*** He and Peter, he said, had already condemned Apol- 
linarius and Timothy. ‘There was no occasion for troubling 
further over that heretic. He would soon inevitably perish. As 
for themselves, they should discourage all “‘ vain reasoning and 


idle speculation.” They had received from himself the pattern — 


of a sound faith. Whoever wished to be a Christian had only to 
observe it. It was clear that a more complete submission was 


282 Basil’s name was placed at once on the calendar of eastern saints but it 
does not appear in any extant western martyrology earlier than that of Usuard 
of the time of Charles the Bald. His anniversary is observed at Rome on June 14. 

283 Until now no bishop had addressed another by any other title than that 
of “ brother,” as may be seen in all our previous documents. 


& 
— TSS 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 619 


expected. In September, 379, one hundred and fifty-three bishops 
from Syria and Asia Minor met at Antioch and subscribed un- 
conditionally to the formulae which had come from Rome.*** 

They acted in the nick of time. Gratian had already pro- 
claimed as fellow Augustus his Spanish general, Theodosius, and 
had committed to him the administration of the East. After a 
summer of beating back the barbarians along the Danube, Theo- 
dosius now pitched his winter-quarters at Thessalonica and pro- 
ceeded to take stock of his new dominion. For a while, however, 
he was laid up by an illness and during his prostration he received 
baptism from the orthodox Acholius, bishop of the city.** 
Through him and others he heard dreary reports of the eastern 
church, leaderless and disunited, in woeful contrast to the pros- 
perous and compact organization of the West. Theodosius de- 
cided, the historian Sozomen tells us, to announce at once defi- 
nitely to his subjects his own views as to doctrine, ‘‘so as not 
to seem to coerce them by suddenly commanding them to accept 
a religion contrary to their belief.” **° His edict, issued in the 
names of himself, of Gratian and of Gratian’s younger brother, 
Valentinian II, required of all subjects that they should follow 
“that religion which the holy Peter delivered to the Romans 

. and which the pontiff Damasus manifestly observes, as does 
also Peter, bishop of Alexandria,” to wit, the faith “in the deity 
of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of equal majesty in sacred 
Trinity.” All dissenters would henceforth be liable to the penal- 
ties inflicted upon heretics. Thus the standard of Rome was 
imposed by ordinance of the State upon the whole Church, even 
as Arianism had been imposed in the East during the reigns 
preceding. 

Theodosius, however, was not immediately free to enforce 
his edict everywhere. Through the season of 380, the Gothic 
marauders kept him away from Constantinople. But even in his 


284 On the statements contained in these formulae, see L. Duchesne, Early 
History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, p. 336, n. 2. 

285 Thessalonica, it must be remembered, lay in territory hitherto regarded 
as belonging to the sphere of the western emperor. Its bishop, therefore, was still 
included in the western church. Acholius acted as the vicar and instrument of 
Damasus in that region. 

286 Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 4. 


620 THE SEE OF PETER 


absence, steps were taken to set up an orthodox bishop in place 
of Demophilus, the old Arian, who had once been mentor to 
Liberius **7 and who now presided in the great cathedral of 
Hagia Sophia. Gregory of Nazianzus, the intimate friend of 
Basil and, like him and Meletius, a devoted Trinitarian of the 
neo-orthodox wing of the Homoiousians, was chosen and ordained 
by the catholic groups in the city that had emerged into sight 
upon the death of Valens. Gregory’s poetic and scholarly preach- 
ing drew crowds to the little church of the Anastasis (Resurrec- 
tion). Only the arrival of Theodosius was awaited to eject 
Demophilus and set the new bishop in his stead. 

But before that could take place, interference came from an 
unexpected source. Peter of Alexandria, ensconced securely in 
his own see and distinguished together with Damasus by the re- 
cent imperial statute, heard with chagrin that an ex-Homoiousian 
and a friend of Basil and Meletius was stepping into the see of 
the eastern capital. These offshoots of the Arians, against whom 
orthodox Alexandria had from the beginning waged so bitter a 
war, were after all, it seemed, to inherit the land. Nowhere in 
the East beyond Egypt would the original and uncontaminated 
Nicenes remain in real control. 

In his vexation, Peter sponsored a reckless scheme to substi- 
tute for Gregory a Cynic philosopher, called Maximus, a bizarre 
sort of person, who had made a profession of Christianity while 
wearing the long hair and abbreviated cloak that marked the 
Cynic school. This Maximus now went with letters of introduc- 
tion from Peter to the faithful of Constantinople and received 
a cordial welcome and entertainment from the unsuspecting 
Gregory. Instructions were meanwhile circulated surreptitiously 
among the Alexandrian sailors and travellers in the harbor. One 
night, when everyone was asleep, a mob of these Alexandrians, 
escorting a deputation of Egyptian clergy, stole quietly to the 
church of the Anastasis, elected Maximus bishop of Constan- 
tinople, sheared his flowing locks and proceeded to the ceremony 
of ordination. The first worshippers, coming to the church at 
dawn, found the rites still going on. Gregory, appalled and dis- 


287 Supra, p. 584. 


{ 
: 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 621 


gusted, offered to retire in Maximus’ favor but his people, in- 
furiated both at the intruder and at the Alexandrians who had 
connived with him, held their own bishop fast. Theodosius, in- 
formed of this dishonorable stratagem, refused to listen to Max- 
imus’ appeal for support. He returned in ignominy to Alexandria 
to take refuge with Peter. 

But the latter now repented of his meddlesome indiscretion, 
seeing that he had by it displeased the emperor and seriously 
offended his friend Damasus. For Damasus had heard accounts 
of the performance at Constantinople from Acholius of Thes- 
salonica and other bishops in the vicinity and had promptly ex- 
pressed his scandalized amazement that any Christians could so 
far forget themselves as to propose a pagan philosopher for 
bishop, adding a scathing reference to interfering busybodies 
who did not know where to stop. Peter too, therefore, turned a 
cold shoulder to Maximus, who in revenge stirred up riotous 
scenes in the streets and had to be banished by the city 
prefect. 

The entry of Theodosius into Constantinople on November 
24, 380, put a temporary quietus on all imbroglios. Two days 
later, Demophilus, the Arian bishop, left the city, and the em- 
peror himself with a gorgeous array of troops escorted Gregory 
to the throne of Hagia Sophia. The next step was the summons 
of the eastern episcopate to a general council, to give formal 
sanction to Gregory’s installation and to take measures for the 
future government of the eastern church. Damasus in Italy had 
already heard talk of such a gathering. In the spring of 381, the 
assembly met. It was for the most part composed of neo-orthodox 
bishops from Asia Minor, Syria and the European regions about 
the Marmora, men whose antecedents and attitudes were like 
those of Basil and who now rallied around Gregory and Meletius 
‘of Antioch. Paulinus of Antioch did not appear. Peter of 
Alexandria died just before the council opened. His brother 
Timothy, who succeeded him, did not arrive until toward the 
end. 

Meletius, as the generally accredited bishop of Antioch, pre- 
sided at first over the sessions. Gregory was again solemnly 


622 THE SEE OF PETER 


installed in the cathedral, cherishing, as he says in the narrative 
poem from which we quote, the fond dream that in that high 
place he might bring back peace within the eastern church and 
harmony and understanding between it and the West. But 
scarcely was the triumphant ceremony accomplished when 
Meletius sickened and died. What now was to be done with the 
see of Antioch? 

According to the story told by the historian Theodoret in 
the next century, the general Sapor had, the previous winter, 
appeared in Antioch, expelled the Arians from the principal 
church edifices and delivered them to Meletius, who had at that 
time satisfactorily demonstrated his orthodoxy by the Roman 
standards and had then of his own accord attempted to put 
an end to the schism of Paulinus by offering to share with him 
the rights of bishop as long as they both lived, on the condition 
that whoever survived should be accepted as sole head by both 
parties. Paulinus had proudly rejected the friendly overture 


but Meletius’ proposition was now revived by some of his fellow — i 


comrades, notably by Gregory, who assumed the post of president 
of the council. Let every Catholic, he eagerly urged, now recog- 
nize Paulinus as bishop of Antioch and let the long division be 
healed! Why keep at enmity those for whom Christ died? Un- 
fortunately, to the rank and file of Orientals, Paulinus stood as 
the candidate of the implacable Damasus and of his intimate, the 
unpopular Peter of Alexandria. Because of Paulinus, Peter and 
Damasus and their obstinacy, the peace of the brethren of Asia 


had been all these years delayed. Why should Asia still make 


all the concessions? The old, rancorous comparisons between 
East and West came to men’s lips. ‘‘ Was it not in the East 
that Christ was born? ” ‘“ Yes,” replied Gregory, “and it was 
in the East that he was slain.” The early, happy concord of the 


assembly was destroyed and half obliterated scores and grudges — 


cropped up on every side.*** 
In the midst of this turbulent discussion, Timothy arrived 


288 The fullest report of these events is given by Gregory himself in his 
Carmen de Vita Sua, from which we quote extracts. See also Sozomen, Historia 
Ecclesiastica, VII, 7. Compare this anti-western feeling with that expressed by 
the Council of Antioch. Supra, p. 506. 


ae 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 623 


from Alexandria and Acholius from Thessalonica. They too 
advocated the recognition of Paulinus but not like Gregory with 
moving pleas for charity and brotherhood in the name of Christ. 
Instead, they blew ‘“‘ with the harsh wind of the West” and 
brandished the authority of Rome. They even, in order to cast 
discredit upon eastern methods, raised objections to Gregory’s 
ordination on the ground that he had formerly been ordained to 
other bishoprics, although he had never occupied them. Gregory, 
now utterly despairing, seized upon the excuse thus presented to 
insist upon his own resignation. In a last fervent address, he 
bade farewell to the city of Constantine, to the great cathedral, 
to the council, to the East and to the West, for which and through 
which he had suffered persecution. The assembly was faced with 
a second empty episcopal chair. The problem of Antioch was 
dropped. A list of possible candidates for the vacancy in Constan- 
tinople was hastily submitted to Theodosius, who selected from it 
one Nectarius, an elderly and respectable government official, un- 
troubled by passionate convictions in theology or by memories of 
sore ecclesiastical experience. He was at once consecrated in 
Gregory’s place. 

During its various meetings the council drew up four canons, 
each testifying to some one of the successive gusts of feeling that 
swayed it. The first declared again the faith of Nicaea and 
anathematized all heretics, the heterogeneous survivors of the 
Arian party as well as the Sabellians and the Apollinarians. The 
second repeated in expanded form the decree of Nicaea requiring 
bishops of one locality to confine their activities to that locality.”*° 
The bishop of Alexandria, for example, should attend only to the 
church in Egypt, the bishops of the East or Syria to the Syrian 
church, with due regard to the prerogative of Antioch, and so on. 
The third canon in a few terse words altered the entire framework 
of eastern ecclesiastical organization. ‘‘ The bishop of Constan- 
tinople,” it ran, “‘ shall have the preéminence in honor after the 
bishop of Rome, for Constantinople is New Rome.” It was a 
blow directly at Alexandria, which at Nicaea had ranked next to 
Rome. It implied also, of course, that Antioch would henceforth 


289 Supra, p. 473. 


624 THE SEE OF PETER 


take third place. instead of second, although that see had been 
for a generation so torn with discord and oppression that it had 
almost ceased to count as an authority at all. 

But even more serious to western eyes than the establishment 
of a new patriarchate second only to Rome, so serious indeed as 
quite to outweigh the value of the first definite acknowledgment 
by an eastern council of the Roman primacy, was the introduc- 
tion of the new principle of patriarchal prerogative. If Con- 
stantinople were to stand next to Rome because it was the new 
capital of the Empire, then it followed that Rome was first 
because it was the old capital. Religious leadership, that is, 
belonged where the civil government fixed its seat. As the his- 
torian Sozomen said in explanation: “ For already not only did 
the city have this title [New Rome] and a senate and ranks of 
population and magistracies like the Roman but also contracts 
were adjudicated there according to the custom of the Romans 
in Italy and its laws and privileges were in every respect equal 
to those of the other city.” °° Thus, while on the surface paying 
all due deference to the Roman bishop, the canon inferentially 
raised the whole question of the nature of his supremacy and of 
the rights traditionally accorded to apostolic sees. Damasus 
made no public protest, so far as we hear. But neither he nor 
his successors for some centuries would confirm any of this legis- 
lation or allow the Council of 381 to be called ‘‘ ecumenical ” and 
‘second to the Council of Nicaea,” as the Easterners called it.?% 
Leo I, in a letter of the year 452 to the emperor Marcian and 
the patriarch Anatolius, gave the Roman reason for rejecting it. 
‘The basis of things secular is one and the basis of things divine 
is another and there can be no sure building save on the rock 
which the Lord laid as foundation.” *°? Not until 869, when 
Alexandria and Antioch had been for two centuries engulfed in 
the Moslem Empire, did the Roman legates at another council 


290 Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 9. Compare also Canon 28 of the 
Council of Chalcedon. J. C. Ayer, Source Book for Ancient Church History, 
p. 521. 

291 The letter of the council to Theodosius is contained in J. C. Ayer, op. cit., 
p. 360. 
292 Fpistolae, CIV, 3, and CVI, 2 and 5. J. C. Ayer, op. cit., pp. 478-480. 
Compare also Gregory I, Epistolae, Bk. VII, 34. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 625 


in Constantinople put their names to a resolution which recog- 
nized the see of that city as second to Rome.*” 

Beside passing these canons, the council issued a statement 
of belief, unimpeachably Roman and orthodox. At its dissolu- 
“tion, the last of July, Theodosius published an edict in which 
he named eleven prominent eastern bishops, communion with any 
one of whom would hereafter constitute a sufficient guarantee of 
orthodoxy, and ordered that the churches everywhere should now 
be turned over to men of their persuasion.”** In Antioch, the ad- 
herents of Meletius elected a priest, Flavian, as their new bishop 
in open contempt of Paulinus. But the West made one more 
effort to be heard. Letters arrived for Theodosius from the 
council which was being held under Ambrose at Aquileia and 
from the bishops of North Italy, commending him for restoring 
the churches to the Catholics but deploring the fact that Catholics 
themselves were divided and referring to the just grievances of 
Timothy of Alexandria and of Paulinus of Antioch against men 
whose faith had been shaken in times past, a thrust, of course, at 
the ex-Homoiousians. They did not, as they might conceivably 
have done, quote the edict of 378 and the right conferred by it on 
Damasus to judge any case involving other metropolitans. They 
did, however, assert the right of Rome and the western episcopacy 
to participate in the settlement of affairs of such wide importance 
and asked Theodosius to convoke a greater council of both East 
and West before accepting as decided the situation in Constanti- 
nople.**”? Damasus may have sent expostulations on his own 
account. Eventually Theodosius agreed to request his eastern 
bishops to attend the synod that was being called at Rome for 
the summer of 382. 

The Roman synod of that year was an exceptionally lived one, 
comprising many prominent heads of western churches, such as 
Ambrose of Milan, Acholius of Thessalonica and Valerian of 
Aquileia. Paulinus of Antioch and Epiphanius of Cyprus ?°™ 


293 Canon XXI. On the capture of Constantinople by the freebooters of the 
Fourth Crusade, a Latin patriarchate was erected there which was formally styled 
second to Rome. At the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches in 1439, the 
Greek patriarch was recognized as next to the pope. 

294 Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 1, 3. J. C. Ayer, op. cit., 

295 Two of these letters are included in the Epistolae of ere XII and 
XIII. 295a On Epiphanius, vide supra, p. 185. 


626 THE SEE OF PETER 


were also present. Timothy of Alexandria seems to have sent a 
representative. But the bishops of Constantinople, Asia and 
Syria, those who had made up the bulk of the Council of 381, had 
already planned a second council of their own at ‘‘ New Rome.” 
Some of them did not receive their summons to the West until 
after their arrival on the Bosphorus. They were fully satisfied 
with the achievements of the year before and with Nectarius and 
Flavian. Their creed was as orthodox as anyone’s. They had 
kept the canonical rules of procedure. What more should any- 
one demand of them? Why carry the details of their personal 
and local arrangements before a distant and carping tribunal? 
They wrote a polite letter of regret and explanation to Damasus 
‘“‘and the other holy bishops . . . in the great city of Rome,” 
in which they recalled once more their own past sufferings and 
thanked the western brethren gravely for their present courtesy 


in inviting them to council, “ for although in the past we were 


once condemned to endure buffeting alone, now that our rulers 
are agreed with us in religion, you will not reign without us but 
we are to reign with you.” Unhappily, they said, they had made 
no preparations for the long journey to the West and had re- 
ceived no authorization from the clergy at home to go so far. 
They reported their own concord in the faith and the ordination 
of Nectarius in Theodosius’ presence. The letter was carried to 
Rome by three eastern delegates. The West could do nothing 
further. Theodosius himself apparently felt that there had been 
delay and interference enough, for he now sent a commission of 
high officials and clergy to Damasus, asking him to recognize 
Nectarius. There was nothing for it but to yield with as much 
dignity as possible.”®* | 

There are many signs during Damasus’ pontificate that the 
Roman creed and the Roman primacy were being accepted in 
principle by the churches abroad as never before, even while his 
personal influence was resisted when it invaded what were re- 
garded as local liberties of election or administration. To the 
generality of Christians it is plain that the faith of Rome was 

296 The letter of Damasus to Nectarius is mentioned by Pope Boniface I in 


the year 422. G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, 
VIII, 758. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 627 


coming to mean the right faith, the faith of the apostles, and 
that the See of Rome was par excellence “the Apostolic See.” 
The letters of Basil, in spite of their hurt indignation against 
Damasus individually, and the autobiographic poem of Gregory 
Nazianzen reveal the reverence of the best eastern minds for the 
unswerving steadfastness of Roman leadership and doctrine and 
their sense of its contrast with the flounderings and errors of the 
East. The two letters from Jerome to Damasus, written from 
Syria, express the same feeling with greater ardor and frank- 
hess and no reservations. ‘“ You are the light of the world, you 
are the salt of the earth, you are the vessels of gold and of silver; 
here are the vessels of earth and of wood, the iron rod and 
the eternal fire. . . . Upon that rock [the See of Peter] I know 
the Church is built. Whoever eats the lamb outside that house 
is profane.” 

Jerome, of course, was born a Westerner but we give below 
a few extracts from eastern writers of the same period, which 
illustrate in still more picturesque style the current idealiza- 
tion of Peter and his see. Our first two are from an apoc- 
ryphal gospel, composed in Egypt shortly before the death of 
Athanasius. Peter is there ordained archbishop by Jesus him- 
self amid the applauding hosts of heaven. ‘‘ No man shall be 
exalted above thee and thy throne and whoever has not the 
consecration of thy throne, his hand shall be thrust down.” One 
perceives from a passage like this what it might mean to an 
Alexandrian to know that his church had the approbation of 
Damasus. Our last two extracts, less hyperbolic and flowery in 
phrasing, are not less comprehensive in significance. They come 
from the works of the Syrian Ephraim, who wrote at Edessa in 
the reign of Valens.**’ Like Hilary of Poitiers, he ,sees in the 
confession of Peter the archetype of all later proclamations of 
the Son of the living God, the mortal weapon against heretics 
and the rock foundation for true believers. ‘‘ Thou art the over- 
seer [or bishop ],”’ says Jesus to Peter, “ of those who build for 
me my Church on earth; if they desire at any point to build it 
wrongfully, do thou, the foundation, prevent them; thou art the 


297 On the quotation by Ephraim of the verses in Matthew in which Peter 
is given the power of the keys, vide supra, p. 287, n. 5. 


628 THE SEE OF PETER 


head of the fountain from which my doctrine is drawn; thou art 
the head of my disciples; through thee I shall give drink to all 
nations.” 

If Damasus had but known how to be less crabbed and less 
narrowly literal and partisan, if he had made but one gesture of 
compassionate friendliness, had evinced any sign of the generous 
spirit of peace, the eastern churches were ready, it would seem, 
to fall at his feet in gratitude and relief. Basil himself said that 
the people everywhere would have followed him unhesitatingly. 
As it was, he consistently chilled and disappointed them, haggled 
over minutiae of phraseology and etiquette, emphasized his own 
superiority, took the petty or reactionary view of their disputes 
and shut his ears to their efforts to enlighten him, made no 
effectual move to help them when they needed it, intervened 
injudiciously when the need was past, above all displayed no 
pity or concern for them as brothers in want, as sheep whom he 
was charged to feed. In consequence, they admitted formally or, 
as one may say, ideally the agelong preéminence of the Roman 


metropolitan over their own less fortunate episcopates but they 


fought their way through their troubles and solved their diffi- 
culties without him. The bonds that might have riveted them 
to him in life were never forged. The greatest opportunity that 
had come to a Roman bishop beneath the government of the 
Empire came to Damasus and he let it slip. In another century, 
when the Empire had begun to crumble, other opportunities, 
great also but different, were to arise and Leo was to show, as 
Damasus had failed to do, the fullness of that authority which 
by long, slow stages had been gathering about the Roman See. 


For references. on the pontificate of Damasus, vide supra, p. 109; also 
G. Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme (3 vols., 3rd ed., Paris, 1898), pp. 267 sqq.; 
P. Allard, S. Basile (Paris, 1899); P. Allard, Basile, in A Vacant and E. 
Mangenot, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (7 vols., Paris, 1909-1922), 
Vol. II; W. Bright, The Canons of the First Four General Councils (Oxford, 
1882), pp. 90-123; H. Leclercq, L’Espagne Chrétienne (Paris, 1906), Chap. 
III; L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church (trans. from the 
4th ed. by C. Jenkins, 3 vols., London, 1910-1924), Vol. II, chaps. XI—-XIII, 
XV; C. H. Turner, Latin Lists of the Canonical Books: The Roman Council 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 629 


under Damasus, A.D. 382, in Journal of Theological Studies (London, 1900), 
Vol. I, pp. 556 sqg.; B. J. Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461 (3 vols. 
Oxford, 1922-1925), Vol. II, pp. 231-327. 


1. THe DISPUTE OVER LIBERIUS’ SUCCESSOR 


Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, 29. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, LXVII, 541-544. 


When the emperor Valentinian was reigning in quiet and 
giving no encouragement to heresy, Damasus, successor of 
Liberius, obtained the priestly office of bishop at Rome. In 
his day, there was great disturbance in the church at Rome 
for the following reason. Ursinus, a deacon of the same 
church, was nominated when the election of bishop was 
being held. Then when Damasus was elected, Ursinus could 
not bear the disappointment of his hope and hastened to 
form a party in rivalry to the church. And he persuaded 
some obscure bishops to ordain him in secret. For he was 
ordained not in a church but in a concealed spot of the 
basilica which is called Sicinian.** After this had hap- 
pened, dissension took possession of the people. They 
fought with one another not over any question of faith or of 
heresy but simply as to which man ought to be given charge 
of the episcopal see. Then street fights broke out among the 
mob and many were killed in battle and many laymen and 
clergy were punished for it by Maximin, who was prefect at 
that time in the city. And so Ursinus finally abandoned his 
attempt and those who had been his followers subsided. 


298 The location of this basilica is still a matter of some dispute. The name 
implies that it was a private basilica or hall in the palace of the Sicinian family. 
It has been suggested that Liberius had used the walls and foundation of this hall 
in the construction of his church and that the old name still clung to his new 
building. But archaeologists disagree. Socrates is mistaken in saying that Ursinus 
was ordained there. It was the scene of the battles after Ursinus’ banishment. 


630 THE SEE OF PETER 


Quae gesta sunt inter Liberium et Felicem Episcopos, 2-3. 
Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 
XXXV, 2-4. 


Then [after the death of Liberius] the priests and the 
deacons, Ursinus, Amantius and Lupus, with the holy people 
who had kept faith with Liberius while he was in exile, 
began to gather in the basilica of Julius *”’ and demanded 
that the deacon Ursinus be ordained bishop in Liberius’ 
place. But the perjurers in Lucina*”’ called for Damasus 
as their bishop in place of Felix. Paul, the bishop of Tibur, 
consecrated Ursinus. And when Damasus, who had always 
schemed for the bishopric, heard of it, he stirred up all the 
charioteers and the ignorant multitude with money until, 
armed with clubs, they burst into the basilica of Julius, 
slaughtered many of the faithful and held an orgy for three 
days. After seven days, with all the perjurers and the 
gladiators whom he had bribed with huge sums, he took 
possession of the Lateran basilica and was ordained bishop 
there and he seduced Viventius, the city judge, and Julian, 
prefect of the treasury, and arranged that Ursinus, a man 
highly revered, who had been ordained bishop before him, 
should be sent into exile, with the deacons Amantius and 
Lupus. This accomplished, Damasus began with blows and > 
bloodshed to coerce the Roman people who opposed his 
processions. And he attempted to expel from the city seven 
priests whom he had arrested by an official. But the faith- 
ful people met those priests and snatched them away and 
brought them directly to the basilica of Liberius.*” 

Then Damasus and the perjurers collected the gladiators, 
charioteers and grave-diggers and all the clergy, with axes, 


299 Supra, p. 488, n. 98. 

800 The modern basilica is known as San Lorenzo in Lucina. 

301 Supra, p. 555, n. 191. The new basilica of Liberius was probably the largest 
at this time in the city, with the exception of the basilica built by Constantine over 
the tomb of Peter in the Vatican district, and the basilica at the Lateran. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 631 


swords and clubs, and besieged the basilica at the second 
hour of the day, October 26, in the consulship of Gratian 
and Dagalaifus, and started a fierce battle. For they 
crashed down doors and laid fires and searched for an en- 
trance, in order to break in. Some of Damasus’ followers 
tore up the roof of the basilica as well and killed the faithful 
people with the tiles. Then all the forces of Damasus poured 
into the basilica and slew one hundred and sixty of the 
people, both men and women, and wounded a very large 
number, many of whom died. But no one died of the party 
of Damasus. Then, three days later, the holy people gath- 
ered together and began to repeat against him the command- 
ment of the Lord, who said: “ Fear not them who kill the 
body and cannot kill the soul.” ** And they sang psalms 
of praise and said: “ The dead bodies of thy servants have 
they given to be meat unto the fowls of heaven, the flesh 
of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth; their blood have 
they shed like water round about Jerusalem and there was 
none to bury them.” ** Also the people met often in the 
basilica of Liberius and cried aloud, saying: ‘‘ O Christian 
Emperor, nothing is hidden from you! Let all the bishops 
come to Rome and the case be tried! Damasus has now 
made five wars. Away with murderers from the See of 
Peter!” For the people of God prayed constantly for an 
assembly of bishops to overthrow, with a just verdict, this 
man who was stained with such impiety and whom the 
ladies loved so much that he was called the ladies’ ear- 
tickler. 

Then the voices of the people were reported to the 
monarch Valentinian and he was animated by godly devo- 
tion and gave permission to the exiles to return. So Ursinus 
and the deacons Amantius and Jovinus came back, and the 
holy people went joyfully out to meet them. But Damasus, 


802 Matthew, X, 28. ; 
303 Psalms, LX XVIII, 2, 3 (Douay Version); Psalms, LXXIX, 2, 3 (King 
James Version). 


632 THE SEE OF PETER 


who was conscious of his many crimes, was shaken with 
great fear and he bribed the whole palace not to reveal his 
deeds to the emperor. Accordingly, the emperor, who did 
not know what Damasus had perpetrated, issued an edict 
that Ursinus should be sent back to exile, so that no further ~ 
strife might break out among the people. Then Bishop 
Ursinus, who was a holy man and who without sin took — 
thought for the people, delivered himself into the hands of 
the evildoers and on November 16, by the emperor’s bidding, 
went willingly into exile. But the people, who feared God 
and were weary with much persecution, did not fear the em- 
peror nor the judge nor Damasus himself, the criminal and 
murderer, but held services without clergy in the cemeteries 
of the martyrs. When, therefore, many of the faithful had 
met at St. Agnes,*’* Damasus with his creatures fell upon 
them and cut down many in their savage onslaught. But 
this brutal act displeased severely the bishops of Italy. And 
when he had pompously invited them to his anniversary and 
some of them had assembled with him,**’ he tried with en- 
treaty and bribery to prevail upon them to pass sentence 
against the holy Ursinus. But they answered: ‘‘ We have 
met here for an anniversary, not to condemn a man un- 
heard.”’ So his base purpose failed to achieve the result at 
which it aimed. 


Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, XXVII, 3, 12-15. 
Text.Ed. by C20, Clarks iter 424-425. : 


Damasus and Ursinus were consumed with desire more 
than human to obtain the episcopal see and fought in bit- 
terest rivalry to the point of death and wounds, with bel- 
ligerent forces on each side, and when Viventius [the pre- 
fect ] was powerless either to quell or to abate the tumult but 


804 The basilica of Sant’? Agnese outside the walls. eae 
805 This was probably the synod of 367, held a year after Damasus’ ordination. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 633 


was overwhelmed by its superior violence, he withdrew to a 
suburb. And Damasus was victorious in the conflict, with 
the aid of his partisans. It is well known that in the basilica 
Sicinini, which is a meeting place of the Christian sect, one 
hundred and thirty-seven corpses were found of persons who 
had been killed on one day and the people were for a long 
time in a ferocious mood and were quieted afterward with 
difficulty. 

Nor, when I behold the pomp of city life, do I deny 
that men who covet this office in order to fulfil their ambi- 
tions may well struggle for it with every resource at their 
disposal. For when they have once obtained it they are ever 
after so secure, enriched with offerings from the ladies, riding 
abroad seated in their carriages, splendidly arrayed, giving 
banquets so lavish that they surpass the tables of royalty. 
They might in more truth be blessed if they disdained the 
greatness of the city, with which they compete in vice, and 
lived in imitation of some of the provincial bishops, who 
eat and drink plainly and sparingly, wear poor clothing and 
keep their faces bent upon the ground and so commend 
themselves continually to the divinity and his true wor- 
shippers as pure and godfearing men. 


Valens, Valentinian I and Gratian, Rescript to Damasus, 
Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 2, 20. Text. C. T. G. 
Schoenemann, Pontificum Romanorum Epistolae Gen- 
uinae, 310-311. 


The emperors Valens, Valentinian and Gratian Augusti 
to Damasus, bishop of the city of Rome. 

Ecclesiastics or members of ecclesiastical bodies or those 
who wish to be called by the name of continent *°* shall 
not visit the houses of widows and heiresses in ward but 
shall be excluded by the public magistrates, if hereafter the 


305a J.e,, monks. 


634 THE SEE OF PETER 


relatives or friends of the women desire to have them re- 
moved. We also ordain that the men above-mentioned may 
receive nothing from the liberality of any woman with whom 
they have had private interviews under guise of religion, 
even by will, and that every bequest that the women leave 
to any of them shall be void. Not even through the medium 
of a third person may they obtain a gift or a legacy. More- 
over, if the women attempt after our edict of warning to 
make them any gift or bequest, it will be confiscated to the 
treasury of the State. If, however, any ecclesiastics receive 
legacies from women to whose inheritance or property they 
have some title by civil law or the provisions of an edict, 
they may keep them on the ground of relationship. 

Read in the Roman churches, July 29, in the third 
consulship of Valens and Valentinian Augusti.*°”” 


2. THe EASTERN APPEAL FOR WESTERN HELP 


Roman Synod of c. 370, Letter to the Eastern Bishops, 
printed under Damasus, Epzstolae, I. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Latina, XIII, 347-349. 


Damasus, Valerian, Vitalian, Aufidius, Pacianus, Victor, 
Priscus, Innocent, Abundius, Theodulus and the others who 
have met in the city of Rome to try the case of Auxentius 
and expound the faith, to the catholic bishops of the East, 
greeting in the Lord. - 

We trust that your holiness, grounded upon the teaching 
of the apostles, is holding fast and imparting to the people 


305b A.D. 370. We have no Roman comment on this edict. Ambrose, writing 
later to Valentinian II, remarked: “ Recent laws have deprived us of the right of 
receiving emoluments by private bequest and no one complains, for we do not 
consider it a hardship, since we grieve not for riches.” But it is strange that 
“the legacy of a Christian widow to the priests of a temple is valid, to the ministers 
of God invalid.” Epistolae, XVIII. Jerome said of it in 394: “I do not complain 
of the law; I only regret that we should have deserved it. The prohibition was a 
sagacious measure, designed to strengthen discipline, but after all it has not checked 
the avarice of the clergy or the religious.” Epistolae, LII, 6. The law was re- 
pealed by the emperor Marcian. Novella, 3. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 635 


that faith which varies no whit from the beliefs of our an- 
cestors. For no other doctrine is right for the priests of God, 
who have the duty of teaching others. We have learned 
from the report of the brothers from Gaul and Venetia that 
some men, not in favor of heresy, for such evil cannot befall 
the priests of God, but in ignorance or simple-mindedness, 
excited by wrong representations, are not sufficiently appre- 
ciating how the doctrine of our fathers should be upheld, 
while their ears are beset by varying counsels. In conse- 
quence, our brothers have resolved, on this ground particu- 
larly, to condemn Auxentius of Milan.*®° 

It is right that all the masters of the law in the Roman 
world should have the same understanding of the law and 
should not violate the Lord’s faith in their respective magis- 
tracies. The venom of the heretics appeared long ago, just 
as now again it has begun to creep out. But when the 
blasphemous Arians began especially to increase, our prede- 
cessors, three hundred and eighteen bishops and the envoys 
from the city of the holy bishop of Rome, held a council at 
Nicaea and erected this bulwark against the arms of the 
devil and provided this remedy for mortal poisons, namely, 
that all must believe that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are 
one Deity, one form and one substance; and they ruled out 
from our fellowship anyone who thought otherwise. This 
creed of salvation some men have tried since to corrupt and 
distort by various interpretations. But in our opening ses- 
sion, the men who were compelled at Rimini *”’ to reject this 
creed made their amends as follows: they confessed that 
they had been entangled in discussion and for that reason 
had not understood that the doctrine of the Fathers, pro- 
mulgated at Nicaea, was opposed to them. Nor can any 
weight be attached to the size of the assemblage at Rimini, 


806 The wording here is somewhat obscure, but Damasus and his synod are 
evidently citing with approbation the action of the bishops of Gaul and Venetia. 
For Auxentius, vide supra, pp. 538, 604. 

307 Supra, Pp. 547. 


636 THE SEE OF PETER 


inasmuch as it is well known that neither the Roman bishop, 
whose judgment should have been asked first of all, nor 
Vincent,’ who had served unstained as priest for so many 
years, nor any others of like standing ratified its decisions 
and especially since, as we have said, the very men who are 
known to have succumbed to pressure there have now with 
better counsel declared their remorse. 

So you see clearly that this one faith, which was founded 
at Nicaea upon the authority of the apostles, must be main- 
tained with steadfastness forever and that in it the people 
of the East who consider themselves catholic find their glory, 
as do those of the West. Nor do we believe that any other 
measure is possible but to deprive men of contrary opinion 
of their communion with us and of the title of bishop, so 


that their flocks may breathe freely upon liberation from — 


their errors. For how can they correct the misdeeds of the 


people when possessed by error themselves? Let then your 


loving faith be in harmony with all the priests of God! We 
are sure that you are fixed and confirmed in it and so also 
should you be certain that we are in righteous agreement 
with you. Do you testify to your holy approbation in your 
letters in reply. 

I, the deacon Sabinus, delegate from Milan, present this 
authentic copy. 


Basil, Epistolae, LXVI. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Graeca, XXXII, 424-425. 


To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.*” 


No one, I believe, is so distressed at the present position 
or, to be more exact, confusion of the churches as your honor, 
for you compare the present with the past and understand 
how far this has fallen from that. . . . But the more deeply 


808 Vincent of Capua, supra, pp. 470, n. 64, 490, 536. 
309 Written in 371. 


ee ee a ee re Le ee ee, nd 


ee eee ae fe eee ee See, en po 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 637 


your excellency feels this distress, the more determined we 
think you must be to exert your wisdom on the churches’ 
behalf. I, for my part, have long been convinced, as far as 
my mediocre intelligence can judge of current affairs, that 
the one way of assisting our churches lies in securing the 
sympathy of the western bishops. For if they were willing 
to display the same energy for the sake of the flock in our 
countries which they have put forth over one or two men 
convicted of heterodoxy in the West, our whole situation 
would assuredly be benefited. Our sovereign **® would treat 
with respect that imposing body of men and the laity every- 
where would follow them unhesitatingly. 

Who then is more competent to bring this about than 
your wise self? Who is keener to perceive what must be 
done? Who is more experienced in the execution of benefi- 
cent plans? Who suffers more profoundly in the affliction 
of the brethren? What is more revered in all the West than 
your august, grey hairs? ... Send men well versed in 
sound doctrine from the holy church under your care to the 
bishops of the West. Recount to them the troubles which 
weigh us down. Suggest a method of relief... . I know 
that letters are weak to arouse men in a matter of such 
moment. You yourself, however, need no exhortation from 
others, any more than heroic athletes need the children’s 
cheers. We are not offering instruction to an ignorant person 
but giving fresh impetus to one who has already put forth 
his strength. 

To settle the affairs of the whole East you must, per- 
haps, have the support of others and wait for the men of the 
West. But the restoration to order of the church at Antioch 
is a matter, obviously, for your reverence. .. . If Antioch 
could be set right, it would, like a healthy head, supply 
soundness to the entire body... . 


310 The Arian Valens. 


638 THE SEE OF PETER 


Ibid., LXVII. Text. Op. cit., 425-428. 
To Athanasius.** 


[ At the request of Deacon Dorotheus I will repeat more 
explicitly what I said in my earlier letter, viz., that all the — 
East and I myself desire to see Meletius recognized as the 
head of the church of Antioch.| And your watchful wisdom 
has not failed to observe that the Westerners who are in 
agreement with you are now also of the same mind, as their 
letters show which were brought to us by the blessed 
Silvanus.*” 


Ibid., LXVIII. Text. Op. cit., 428-4209. 
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.*” 


[I am sending Deacon Dorotheus back to confer with 
you.| In brief, I have reached the conclusion that this 
same brother, Dorotheus, should go to Rome to stir up 
some of the Italians to visit us by way of the sea, in order 
to avoid persons who would hinder them. [I think they 
might have influence with Valens.| If then the idea seems 
feasible to you, will you kindly prepare letters and draw 
up memoranda as to what he ought to say there and to 
whom. And in order that your letters may carry weight, 
do you add the names of all who are of your party, even if 
they are not at Antioch... . 

311 Written later in 371. 

312 Silvanus, of whom we do not hear elsewhere, may have been the bearer 
of a letter describing the condemnation of Ursacius and Valens at the synod of 368 
or perhaps that of Auxentius by the bishops of Venetia and Gaul and the 


determination of the West to uphold orthodoxy. From that Basil erroneously 
inferred that the West would support Meletius. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 639 


Ibid., LXTX. Text. Ob. cit., 429-433. 
To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. 


As time passes it steadily confirms the opinion which I 
have long had of your holiness; nay, rather, the course of 
events day by day enhances it. . . . I have, therefore, sent 
to your reverence our brother Dorotheus, a deacon in the 
church of the honorable bishop Meletius, a man of good 
zeal for the orthodox faith and desirous also of seeing 
peace among the churches. ... You will welcome him, 
I know, and regard him with friendly eyes. You will 
strengthen him by the aid of your prayers and forward him 
on his way with letters. In addition, you will send with 
him some of the earnest men of your city and so speed him 
on his road to whatever lies ahead. 

It has seemed to me wise to send a letter to the bishop 
of Rome, to ask him to look into the situation here and give 
us advice and, since it is difficult to obtain men from the 
West by general order from a synod, to urge him to exercise 
his personal authority in the matter and appoint men able 
to endure the hardships of a journey, able too, by gentleness 
and firmness of character, to correct the unruly among us 
here and speak with propriety and moderation, thoroughly 
acquainted with all that has occurred since Rimini, in order 
to undo the measures forcibly enacted on that occasion. 
They should travel here without anyone’s knowledge, with- 
out ostentation and by sea, so as to escape the notice of 
the enemies of peace. 

Another request is made by some of the men here, an 
inevitable one it appears to me too, namely, that the western’. 
bishops denounce the heresy of Marcellus ** as grievous and 
pernicious and contrary to sound faith. For hitherto in all 
the letters they write, they never fail to anathematize up 


313 Supra, pp. 492, 493, 500, 504, N. 117, 513. 


640 THE SEE OF PETER 


and down the ill-famed Arius and to exclude him from the 
churches. But apparently they attach no blame to Mar- 
cellus, who propounded an impious doctrine, diametrically 
opposed to that of Arius, and sacrilegiously attacked the 
very existence of the only-begotten Godhead and misinter- 
preted the term ‘“‘ word.” ... Nevertheless they seem 
never to have condemned him and are therefore culpable, 
because at the beginning, during their ignorance of the truth 
about him, they received him into communion with the 
Church. The present state of affairs makes it especially 
needful that attention should be called to him, in order that 
persons seeking an opportunity for mischief may be pre- 
vented from finding it by the union of all sound believers 
with your holiness and that all who lack true faith may be 
sharply distinguished and we may know who are on our side 
and not struggle as in a night battle, unable to tell friends 
from foes. 

Only, I do beseech you to dispatch the deacon I spoke of 
by the first boat, that some of the objects for which we pray 
may be accomplished, at least during the coming year. One 
thing you comprehend even before I mention it, and will 
provide for, I know, which is, that when, God willing, the 
commissioners come, they are not to precipitate schisms 
between the churches but are to use every means to bring » 
together men of the same beliefs, even though they find 
some who cherish personal grounds for dissension, so that 
the orthodox laity may not split apart into many factions, 
seceding in company with their bishops. .. . 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 641 


Ibid., LXX. Text. Op. cit., 433-436. 
| Letter to Damasus. | °* 


To revive the ancient laws of love and restore again to 
vigorous life the peace of the Fathers, that heavenly and 
saving gift of Christ, which in the passage of time has 
withered away, is both essential and salutary for us and 
will be, I know, a delight to your Christian heart. For 
what could give more joy than the sight of those who are 
separated by so vast a distance bound together by the ties 
of love into one harmonious membership in the body of 
Christ? The entire East, almost,—TI call East the lands 
from Illyricum to Egypt, — is now ravaged, honored father, 
by heavy storm and tempest. The heresy planted long ago 
by Arius, enemy of the truth, is now flaunting again. Like 
some bitter root it is bearing deadly fruit and overtopping 
us, for in every parish the champions of right doctrine have 
been driven by calumny and outrage from their churches 
and the control of affairs has been put into the hands of men 
who lead captive the souls of the simpler folk. We look for 
but one solution of our troubles, a visit from your clemency. 

Always in the past your extraordinary affection toward 
us has been a consolation to us and for a short time we were 
cheered in heart by the glowing report that we were to 
receive a visit from you. So, when we were disappointed 
in that hope and could endure it no longer, we decided to 
entreat you by letter to take some course to help us 
and to send some men who are like-minded with us, either 
to reconcile our disputants and bring into friendship again 
the churches of God or, at least, to discover for you who are 
responsible for our disorder, that you may understand in 
future with whom you should be in communion. 


314 This letter, as we have it, bears no address or superscription but there can 
be no doubt for whom it was intended. It is presumably the letter to which Basil 
refers above. 


642 THE SEE OF PETER 


We are proposing nothing novel whatever but something 
that was customary among those men of the past who were 
blessed and dear to God, particularly among you. For we 
remember hearing from our fathers, when we questioned 
them, and reading in documents still preserved among us, 
that the most blessed bishop Dionysius,” who is famous 
among you for his orthodox faith and other virtues, visited 
by a letter our church of Caesarea and admonished by letter 
our fathers and sent men to ransom our brethren from cap- 
tivity. Our condition now is harder and more painful and 
more in need of succor. We are mourning not the destruc- 
tion of material buildings but the loss of churches. We see 


about us not the enslavement of bodies but the captivity — 


of souls, achieved every day by the champions of heresy. 
So if you be not now inclined to help us, you will soon find 
no one to whom to stretch out a hand, for we shall have 
fallen under the dominion of heresy. 


Ibid., LXXXIX. Text. Op. cit., 469-472. 
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.*” 


[I am sending Dorotheus to you.] And if you have any 
ground for writing to the Westerners, because it is quite 


necessary that letters should go to them from some of us, 


do you prepare your letters. We have received the deacon 
Sabinus, whom they sent to us,’ and we have written to 
the Illyrians and to the bishops of Italy and Gaul and to 
some who have written privately to us. It would be desir- 
able to have a man sent, as if from the synod as a body, to 
carry a second letter. Do you have one written. ... 


315 Supra, p. 429, 816 Written in 372, 317 Supra, p. 636. 


ae ae eee ye 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 643 


Ibud., XC. Text. Of. cit., 472-476. 
To the holy brethren and bishops in the West.” 


The good God, who ever mingles comfort with affliction, 
has granted us even now, in the midst of many distresses, 
some partial consolation in the letter which our honored 
father, Bishop Athanasius, has received from you and for- 
warded to us. For it is evidence of your sound faith and 
proof of your unshaken harmony and concord, testifying that 
the shepherds are following in the footsteps of the Fathers 
and feeding the Lord’s people with knowledge. ... The 
Lord has also given me encouragement through my son, the 
godly deacon Sabinus, who has nourished my heart by his 
good reports of you. He will give you an exact account of 
us with information from his own experience, that you may, 
first of all, aid us in our struggle by earnest and persistent 
prayer to the Lord and may, secondly, not refuse to ex- 
tend such solace as lies in your power to our oppressed 
churches... 

[Description of the demoralization of the churches. | 
Let there be freely repeated among us that good proclama- 
tion of the Fathers, whereby they overwhelmed the in- 
famous heresy of Arius and built up the churches in sound 
doctrine, . . . so that, even as the Lord has given you lib- 
erty for the truth, and glory in the confession of the divine 
and saving Trinity, he may, through your prayers and your 
aid, grant the same boons to gladden us. The deacon of 
whom I spoke will report everything to you in love. We 
assent to all that your honors have canonically done and 
approve your apostolic zeal for orthodoxy. 


817a Written in 372. 


644 THE SEE OF PETER 


Ibid., XCI. Text. Op. cit., 476. 
To Valerian, bishop of the Illyrians.™™ 


[A letter to be delivered by Sabinus on his way West, 
commending him to Valerian’s hospitality and explaining the 
eastern need of help. | 


Ibid., XCII. Text. Op. cit., 477-484. 


Meletius, Eusebius, Basil, . . . Gregory and Daphnus,*” 
to their godly and holy brothers and fellow ministers, the 
bishops in harmony with us in Italy and Gaul, greeting in 
the Lord. 


. . . Weare heartened by the reasonable hope that per- 
haps, if we relate our troubles to you, we may induce 
you to give us that assistance which we have not yet re- 
ceived. ... For you have not been ignorant of our state, 
honored brethren, since the report of it has spread to the 
ends of the earth. Nor have you been without sympathy 
for brethren of like faith with you, for you are disciples of 
the apostle who teaches that love for our neighbor is the 
fulfilling of the law.**° But, as we have said, the judgment 
of God, which has ordained that we must pay in full the 
penalty laid upon us for our sins, has held you back. But 
now, at last, we beseech you to show your ardor for the 
truth and your compassion for us and to hear all, especially 
what has heretofore escaped your ears, from our pious 
brother, the deacon Sabinus, who can himself tell you what 
our letter omits. We implore you now to put on bowels of 


318 Written in 372. Valerian’s see was at Aquileia. 

319 The list of the senders of this letter contains thirty-two names of bishops 
from Syria and Central and Southern Asia Minor. The first four that we give 
were bishops of Antioch, Samosata, Caesarea in Cappadocia, and Nyssa respec- 
tively. The see of Daphnus is unknown. 

320 Romans, XIII, ro. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 645 


mercy, discard all timidity and undertake the labor of love, 
counting neither length of journey, interests at home nor any 
other human consideration. .. . 

[Description of disorders in the church from Illyricum 
to the Thebaid, spread of heresy, bitterness, doubt and moral 
laxity.]_ Do not allow half the world to be engulfed in 
error! Do not permit the faith to be extinguished in the 
regions where first it shone! ... 

Unquestionably there is need of haste, if the survivors 
are to be rescued, and many brethren must come, so that 
the visitors with ourselves may make up a full synod and 
have influence to effect a reform, not merely through the 
dignity of those who send them but also through the weight 
of their own numbers. And they shall restore the creed 
promulgated by our fathers at Nicaea and outlaw heresy 
and speak peace to the churches, bringing into unison all 
who are of one mind. .. ._ For assuredly the gift bestowed 
by the Lord upon your piety is worthy of the highest ad- 
miration, namely, your power to discern between the false 
and the true and pure, and to teach the faith of the Fathers 
without any equivocation. 


[bid., CXX. Text. Op. cit., 537-540. 
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.*” 


I have received a letter from the godly bishop Eusebius 
[of Samosata], in which he urges us to write again to the 
Westerners about the state of the Church. . . . [Isend you 
herewith a memorandum and ask you to draw up the letter. | 
We are ready to subscribe to it and to see that it is conveyed 
promptly to those who are in communion with us, so that 
when it has received all their signatures, it may go to the 
messenger who is soon to set out to the bishops of the West. 


321 Written in 373 and sent by the priest Sanctissimus. 


646 THE SEE OF PETER 


Ibid., CXXIX. Text. Op. cit., 557-561. 
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.*” 


[I know that Sanctissimus must have reached you by 
now with my letter. If it seems best to you to write again 
to the West, will you have the letter drawn up and [ will 
have a list of the names of the men in my locality made out 
to be appended to it, when finished. I, for my part, did not 
know what more to say to the Westerners, for I have already 
told them the essentials.] One point, however, has occurred 
to me as hitherto unmentioned and as furnishing an excuse 
for another letter and that is a request to them not to accept 
indiscriminately communion with men who come from the 
East but, after they have once chosen to support one side, 


to receive persons only on the recommendation of their 


fellow communicants and not to take in everyone who writes 
a creed with some pretense of orthodoxy. 


Ibid., CX XXVIII. Text. Op. cit., 577-581. 


323 


To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. 


. . . The priest Evagrius, son of Pompeianus of Antioch, 
who went some time ago to the West with the blessed Euse- 
bius,’*’* has now returned from Rome. He asks of us a 
letter containing certain statements dictated by the men 
there. Our own letters he has brought back to us as un- 
satisfactory to their precise minds. He also asks us to send 
at once a deputation of men of high repute, in order to give 
their people a plausible reason for visiting us... . What 
attitude I am to take toward Evagrius’ proposals I was 

822 Written in 373. 

823 Written in 373 or 374. 


824 Evagrius of Antioch had accompanied Eusebius of Vercellae to Italy on 
his return from exile after the death of Constantius. Supra, p. 551. 


a + . act Y . es er ee io aan — m 
ae ee ae Le ee ee 4 ety 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 647 


anxious to learn myself in a personal conversation with you 
but in my present state of ill health I am cut off from 
everything. [Will you write to me and offer prayer, both 
privately and publicly in your synod, that I may decide 
rightly? | 


Ibid., CLVI. Text. Op. cit., 613-617. 
To the priest Evagrius.*” 


[I hope you will be able to promote peace in the church 
at Antioch. I myself cannot cross the Armenian mountains 
in winter. I am sorry to hear from Dorotheus that you 
avoided being in his company.| As for my sending anyone 
to the West, it is wholly out of the question. I have no one 
fit for such an errand. 


Damasus, Epistolae, III. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Latina, XIII, 356-357. 


Damasus to his dearly beloved brother Paulinus.*”° 


I have already sent you a letter by my son Vitalis, in 
which I left everything to your decision and judgment. 
Then I wrote you a note by the priest Petronius, at the very 
moment of his departure, to say that some things had made 
me uneasy. Now, in order that you may have no lingering 
scruples and may not in your praiseworthy spirit of caution 
debar some perhaps who are eager to unite with the Church, 
we are sending a formula of faith, not so much to you, who 
are already joined to the communion of this same faith, as 
to those who may wish by subscribing to it to be joined to 
you, that is, to us through you. 


825 Written soon after the preceding. 


326 Written in 375 to Paulinus, head of the uncompromising orthodox party 
at Antioch, opposed to Meletius and Basil. Supra, pp. 550, 614. 


648 THE SEE OF PETER 


So, if my son Vitalis, of whom I spoke, and those wha 
are with him desire to unite with you, they should first sign 
the creed which was confirmed at Nicaea by the pious will 
of the Fathers. Then, since no one can apply a remedy to 
future wounds and the heresy which after that time, as 
report says, spread over the East has now to be rooted out,**’ 
they should confess that the Wisdom, the Word, the Son of 
God took on human body, spirit and mind, that is, the whole 
Adam, or, to speak more plainly, all our ancient humanity 
without sin. For just as by confessing that he assumed a 
human body, we do not thereby ascribe to him human pas- 
sions and vices as well, so too by declaring that he assumed 
the spirit and mind of a man, we do not thereby assert that 
he suffered the sinfulness of human thoughts... . 

Whoever then subscribes to this letter, provided he has 
previously subscribed to the canons of the Church and to the 
faith of Nicaea, you should receive without hesitation. Not 
that you may not present our statement to converts also 
on their reception but that we prefer to give you liberty in 
receiving them. 


Basil, Epistolae, CCXIV. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Graeca, XXXII, 785-780. 


To Count Terentius.*” 


[I hear that you have returned to public life and are 
now in Antioch.]| And in addition to this, I have heard 
a rumor that the brothers of the party of Paulinus are 
beginning to discuss with your excellency the question 
of union with us. By ‘‘ us” I mean the party of Bishop 
Meletius, the man of God. I hear also that these Paulinians 


827 The heresy of Apollinarius. Supra, p. 611. 

828 Written in 375. Terentius was an orthodox Christian. Ammianus Mar- 
cellinus, X XVII, 12, and XXXI. In 372, he had been in command of twelve 
legions in Georgia and Basil had written to him regarding the provision to be 
made for bishops for the church in Armenia, 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 649 
are now carrying around a letter from the Westerners, which 
assigns to them the bishopric of the Antiochene church and 
misrepresents Meletius, the admirable bishop of the true 
Church of God. I am not surprised at it. The Westerners 
are totally ignorant of affairs here. Those who pretend to 
understand describe things to them in a spirit of combative- 
ness rather than of truth. ... But your excellency has on 
the spot men who can tell you accurately what passed be- 
tween the bishops during the reign of Jovian and from them 
I beg you to get information. 

Nevertheless, I accuse no one; I pray that I may have 
love to all and “ especially unto them who are of the house- 
hold of faith.” °° I congratulate those who have secured 
the letter from Rome. Because it is an august and im- 
pressive testimony in their favor, I hope it is genuine and 
corroborated by their own conduct. But I can never, on 
account of it, persuade myself either to ignore Meletius or 
to forget the church under him or to treat as trivial and 
immaterial to true religion the questions which caused the 
division. I shall never consent to yield merely because some 
man has received a letter from other men and is enormously 
elated over it. Even if it came from heaven itself, if it were 
not in accord with the sound doctrine of faith, I could not 
regard the writer as a member of the communion of 
saints. ... 


Wego AV. Lext.:.Op: ctl 780-792. 
To the priest Dorotheus.**° 


[I have been writing to Count Terentius and am sending 
the letter by the state treasurer, who is travelling by the 
imperial post, with instructions to show it to you before 
delivering it.] I do not understand why no one has told 


329 Galatians, VI, Io. 330 Written in 375. 


650 THE SEE OF PETER 


you that the land road to Rome is quite impassable in 
winter, since the country between Constantinople and our 
own district is full of enemies. If you take the sea route, 
the season is open, if indeed my good brother Gregory ** 
will agree to go by ship and will undertake the commission 
for this business. I myself do not see who are to accompany 
him and I know that he is altogether inexperienced in ec- 
clesiastical negotiations. A man of gracious disposition 
would meet him with respect and every consideration but 
what benefit could result to our cause from an interview be- 
tween one who is lofty and arrogant and high enthroned and 
for that reason unable to listen to people on the earth who 
tell him the truth and one like my brother, in whose char- 
acter there is no room for abject servility? 


Ibid.. CCXXXIX. Text. Op. cit., 889-893. 


To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.** 


. . . The news from the West you have heard already, 
for our brother Dorotheus has told you everything. What 
sort of letters should be given to him when he goes there? 
Perhaps he will share his journey with the noble Sanctissi- 
mus, who is evincing much enthusiasm, travelling around 
the East and collecting signatures and letters from every 
man of note. What kind of letters they should be writing 
or how I am to sympathize with the writers I do not know. 
If you find anyone soon coming our way, be so good as to 
inform me. For there come to my mind the words of 
Diomed: 


“Thou shouldest not entreat the lofty son of Peleus 
Nor offer countless gifts; he’s proud enough.” ** 


Natures that are inherently arrogant grow more insolent 
still when they are courted. And if the Lord be gracious to 
831 Gregory of Nyssa. 332 Written in 375. 833 JTliad, IX, 698-699. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 651 


us, what other bulwark do we need? Butif the wrath of God 
continue, what help can come to us from the supercilious 
West? For they neither know the truth nor try to learn it 
but are taken up with false suspicions and are acting now 
as they did before in the case of Marcellus, when they 
quarrelled with those who told them the facts and by their 
own course confirmed him in his heresy. Along with the 
general communication, I have wanted myself to write to 
their Coryphaeus,***— nothing indeed about the situation 
of the Church but only to suggest mildly that they do not 
know the truth about events here and are not selecting the 
road by which they might learn it, that, as a rule, they ought 
not to attack men who are crushed by tribulation, that they 
must not take hauteur for dignity and that injustice ends 
simply in arousing bitterness against God... . 


Ibid., CCXLII. Text. Of. cit., goo-gor. 


To the Westerners.**” 


[|The eastern church has struggled through terrible 
storms, supported only by its faith in God. It has looked 
for help from the West but has failed to obtain it. | 

How does it happen that we have received no letter of 
consolation, no visit from our brothers, nothing of what you 
owe us by the law of love? This is now the thirteenth year 
since the war of the heretics burst upon us.*** During it, 
the churches have suffered more affliction than all that 
has been recorded since the gospel of Christ was first 
preached.**” . . . We implore you, now at least, to stretch 


334 The leader of the chorus in Attic drama. The allusion, of course, is to 
Damasus. 

335 Written in 375. This and the following letter were apparently carried by 
Dorotheus on his first mission to the West. 

336 The Arian emperor Valens began his reign in 363. 

837 This is rhetorical exaggeration, intended to catch the attention of the West. 
In his Epistolae, CCXC, Basil reminds the church of Nicopolis that their pains are 
light in comparison with those endured by the Fathers, that they are not tortured 
in body, imprisoned, etc. 


652 THE SEE OF PETER 


out your hand to the churches of the East, who are at present 
stricken to their knees, and to send messengers to remind us 
of the prizes laid up in store for those who suffer for Christ. 
A familiar voice has always less power over us than a strange 
one which brings us comfort, especially one that comes from 
men famed, by God’s grace, everywhere among the noblest. 
For the report is spread among all men how you have re- 
mained inviolate in your faith and have preserved unstained 
the tradition of the apostles. . . . Do you, whom we love 
and long for, behave as physicians for the wounded and 
trainers for the sound in body. Heal whatever is diseased 
and anoint whatever is strong for true piety. .. . 


Ibid., CCXLITI. Text. Op. cit., 901-912. 


Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, to his most 
pious and dear brothers and fellow ministers in concord, 
the bishops of Gaul and Italy.*** 


Our Lord Jesus Christ, who deigned to call the whole 
Church of God his body and who has made us severally 
members one of another, has likewise ordained that we 
should all live near to one another as befits harmonious 
members. ... We have already at other times appealed 
to your love to send us help and sympathy but because our 
punishment was not complete, you were not permitted to 
be disposed to aid us. We beg now especially that our 
calamities may be brought, through your good agency, to 
the attention of the emperor of your portion of the world,*” 
but, if this be too difficult, that you send envoys to visit and 
encourage us in our trouble and to behold with their own 
eyes the suffering of the East. For it cannot be appreciated 


338 Written at the same time as the preceding. 
339 Gratian, who had just succeeded Valentinian I. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 653 


by hearsay, because no words can be found to give an ade- 
quate picture of our condition. 

[For our loyalty to the Church’s tradition we are suf- 
fering hardships, such as exile, prohibition of assembly, etc., 
and heresy is fast increasing. It may soon reach the West. 
You are not to think yourselves safe. The East is fighting 
your battle as well as its own. | 

On this account it would have been desirable if many of 
us could have taken the journey to your reverences and could 
each have described his own case. But let this be an in- 
dication to you of the oppression under which we live, that 
we are not free to travel. For if any man leaves his church 
for even the briefest interval, he abandons his people to the 
mercy of the conspirators. But, by God’s grace, we have 
sent you one to represent the many, our revered and beloved 
brother and fellow priest, Dorotheus. He is competent to 
supply by his own information whatever facts our letter has 
omitted, for he has followed everything carefully and is 
zealous for the true faith. Receive him in peace and send 
him speedily back to us to bring us good news of your 
eagerness to succor the brotherhood. 


Ibid., CCLITI. Text. Op. cit., 40. 
To the priests of Antioch.**° 


|Sanctissimus will partly relieve your anxiety by assur- 

ing you of the love and interest of the West. He will also 

tell you things that require serious consideration. We have 

heard only half reports hitherto. Now Sanctissimus comes, 

able to explain clearly and reliably the whole position of the 
West and to offer sound advice. | 

7 340 Written in 376, after the return of Sanctissimus and Dorotheus. Epzstolae, 


CCLIV-CCLVI, are letters of introduction for Sanctissimus to the churches of 
Laodicea, Carrhi, etc. 


654 THE SEE OF PETER 


Ibid., CCLXIII. Text. Op. cit., 976-981. 


To the Westerners.** 


May the Lord God in whom we have trusted grant to 


each of you grace to realize your hopes in measure equal to 
the joy wherewith you have filled our hearts, for the letter 
which you sent us by our beloved fellow priests ** and for 
the sympathy which you felt for us in our distresses, as if, 
indeed, you had put on bowels of mercy, as these priests 
have told us. For even if our wounds remain the same, 
still it is a solace to us to have our physicians ready and 
able, if they find opportunity, to apply quick balm to our 
hurts. Wherefore I salute you in reply by our beloved 
friends and beg you, if the Lord enables you to come to us, 
not to hesitate to visit us.... At least, send us such 
letters as you should write to encourage the afflicted and 
raise up the downtrodden. 

{Our church is not now so much disturbed by out and out 
Arians, who have been publicly expelled and denounced for 
impiety, as by men clad in sheep’s clothing, harmless in 
aspect, who have ‘“‘ come out from us” and still distract 
the simpleminded.] These men we implore you to denounce 
plainly and openly to all the churches of the East, so that 


they may either turn back to the right path and join honestly ~ 


with us or, if they persist in error, may confine their mischief 
to themselves and be hindered from introducing their plague, 
by means of unguarded communion, among their neighbors. 


I must name these persons to you so that you may your- 


selves appreciate who are brewing disturbance among us and 
may indicate them clearly to our churches. For a statement 
from us is suspected by many people, who imagine that we 
probably bear illwill to these men for some personal grudge. 


841 Written in 377 and given to Dorotheus on his second mission to the West. 
342 For the surviving fragment of this letter vide supra, p. 616 and n. 278, 


ee Oh TS ey a a ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 655 


But you, because you live so far away from them, have 
great weight with our people and, besides, the grace of God 
has chosen you to care for those in tribulation. And if many 
of you combine to issue this decree, then the great number 
of its authors will certainly bring about its unquestioning 
acceptance by everybody. 

One of the men who has caused me much anxiety is 
Eustathius of Sebaste in Lesser Armenia. He was originally 
a disciple and pupil of Arius during the period when the 
latter was influential in Alexandria and was concocting his 
notorious blasphemies against the only-begotten Son. 
Eustathius was reckoned one of his most devoted adherents. 
On his return to his own country, he made profession of 
the orthodox faith before Hermogenes, the blessed bishop 
of Caesarea, who had been on the point of condemning him 
for false doctrine. Under such circumstances, he was or- 
dained by Hermogenes but at Hermogenes’ death he went 
immediately to Eusebius of Constantinople, who was one 
of the chief supporters of the impious teachings of Arius.*** 
For some reason or another he was expelled from Constan- 
tinople and coming back to his own country, he defended 
himself a second time, endeavoring to conceal his erroneous 
opinions under a cloak of verbal orthodoxy. 

But no sooner had he attained to the rank of bishop than 
he openly wrote an anathema on the “ homoousios ” in the 
Arian synod at Ancyra.*™ ‘Thence he went to Seleucia and 
took part in the infamous acts of his fellow heretics.** 
Again, at Constantinople, he expressed his assent to the 
heretics’ creed. Then, when he had been expelled from his 
bishopric because of his condemnation at Melitine,*** he 
conceived of a way to secure his reinstatement, namely, to 

843 This was Eusebius of Nicomedia, later of Constantinople. Supra, p. 491. 

844 In 358, when the “homoiousian” formula was endorsed and twelve 
anathemas issued against all who rejected it. 


345 Council of Rimini-Seleucia. Supra, pp. 546-548. 
346 An orthodox gathering in 358. 


656 THE SEE OF PETER 


go to you. I do not know what sort of instructions the 
blessed bishop Liberius gave him nor what agreement he 
made with him, save that Eustathius brought back a letter 
reinstating him, which he displayed to the synod at Tyana, 
and obtained his restoration to his see.**’ He is now de- 
nouncing the very creed upon which he was accepted. He 
consorts with those who anathematize the ‘“ homoousios ” 
and is head of the heresy of the Pneumatomachi.** But 
as it is from the West that he derives his authority to molest 
the churches and through the power bestowed on him by you 
that he subjugates many, it is essential that his correction 
come from the same source and that you send a letter to the 
churches, stating the terms on which he was once received 
and the extent to which he has since altered his position and . 
forfeited the favor shown by the Fathers at that time. 

| Account of the heretical activities of Apollinarius and 
of Paulinus of Antioch, who has accepted followers of Mar- 
cellus of Ancyra.| ... 

We entreat you to show some concern for these things. 
You would show it, if you would write to all the churches 
of the East that you will continue in communion with those 
who have so perverted the doctrine, provided they repent, 
but that if they prefer to abide contentiously by their in- 
novations, you will separate yourselves from them. We are 
aware that we ought to sit in council with you and discuss 
these questions in common deliberation. But the times do 
not permit it and procrastination is perilous, for the mischief 
these men have introduced has taken root. Hence I am 
obliged to send these brethren to you, that you may procure 
from them all the information which my letter has omitted 
and they may prevail upon your reverences to send to the 
churches of God that aid for which they pray. 

847 Supra, pp. 553-554. 


848 The party of ultra conservatives who refused to admit the equality of the 
Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. Supra, p. 555. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 657 


Ibid., CCLXV. Text. Op. cit., 989-9092. 


349 


[To three Egyptian bishops in exile.**® A warning not 
to receive the followers of Marcellus into communion. You 
yourselves are not alone but have many fellow believers left 
in the East “ and in the West they are all in harmony with 
you and us. We have received the ‘ tome’ of their faith 
and keep it with us and follow their sound doctrine.” The 
disciples of Marcellus should not be received until they have 
been restored to communion by the West and the faithful 
in the East. | 


[bid.. CCLXVI. Text. Op. cit., 992-996. 
To Peter, bishop of Alexandria.*”° 


[I am glad of your sympathy and of your stand on 
behalf of church discipline. JI am sorry to hear that 
Dorotheus has been discourteous in speaking to you.| On 
his return, he told me of the conversation he had had with 
your excellency in the presence of the august bishop 
Damasus and grieved me by saying that our most godly 
brothers and fellow ministers, Meletius and Eusebius, had 
been grouped with the Ariomaniacs. Even if there were 
no other evidence of their orthodoxy, certainly the war 
waged against them by the Arians is a strong indication for 
all fairminded persons of their right belief. [I give you my 
earnest assurance of their orthodoxy. I have myself heard 
them testify to it. Now above all things we want peace, in 
order to unite the churches of the East. | 

349 Written in 377. On the state of the Egyptian church vide supra, p. 553. 
350 Written sometime between 375 and 377. Peter II succeeded Athanasius 


as bishop of Alexandria in May, 373. Within a few months, he was forced by 
Arian persecution to flee to Damasus at Rome. 


658 THE SEE OF PETER 


3. THe EASTERN FAITH IN PETER 


Jerome, Epistolae, XV, To Damasus.** Text. C. T. G. 
Schoenemann, Pontificum Romanorum Epistolae Gen- 


uinae, 374-378. 


Because the East is shattered by the ancient, fierce an- 
tagonisms of its peoples and is rending into tiny fragments 
the undivided and woven tunic of the Lord and the wolves 
are destroying Christ’s vineyard, so that amid these dry 
pools that hold no water it is difficult to know where is the 
fountain sealed and the garden enclosed,**” therefore I have 
thought best to turn to the See of Peter and to the faith 
that was praised by the apostle’s lips, to ask now food for 
my soul from the source where once I received the raiment 
of Christ.*°* Nor can the vast stretches of the watery 
element nor the breadth of lands that lie between us pre- 
vent my search for the precious pearl. ‘“ Where the body is, 
there will the eagles be gathered together.” °° An evil 
posterity has squandered its patrimony. You alone pre- 
serve unspoiled the heritage of the Fathers. Yonder the 
good soil of your earth is bringing forth the pure seed of the 
Lord a hundred fold; here the grain is buried in the furrows 
and degenerating into tares and wild oats. In the West, the 


sun of justice is now rising; in the East, Lucifer, he who fell — 


from heaven, has set his throne above the stars. You are 
the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth, you are 
the vessels of gold and of silver; here are the vessels of 
earth and of wood, the iron rod and the eternal fire. 

For this reason your ** greatness terrifies me, yet mercy 


850a The internal evidence shows that Jerome wrote this letter from Syria, 
about 377 A.D. Vide supra, p. 112. 

850b Canticles, II, 15, and IV, 12; Jeremias, II, 13. 

850¢ Jerome had been received into the church at Rome before his departure 
for the East. 

350d Luke XVII, 37. 

850e To this point Jerome has been using the pronoun of the second person in 
the plural number. From here on he most often uses the singular. 


ae oe hel ~ 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 659 


invites me to you. A victim I implore the priest for salva- 
tion, a sheep the shepherd for protection. Away with jeal- 
ousy of the Roman preéminence, away with ambition! I 
speak to the successor of the fisherman and to the disciple 
of the cross. I follow no one as chief save Christ but I am 
joined in communion with your blessedness, that is, with 
the See of Peter. Upon that rock I know the Church is 
built. Whoever eats the lamb outside that house is pro- 
fane.”’" He who is not in Noah’s ark will perish when the 
flood overwhelms all. And I, who for my sins have jour- 
neyed to this solitude which lies between Syria and the 
bounds of barbarism, and cannot look to receive the Lord’s 
holy thing from your holiness over the wide spaces that 
Separate us, am for this reason adhering to your colleagues 
here, the confessors of Egypt,’*= and am hiding my little 
barque behind their great ships. I do not know Vitalis, 
I repudiate Meletius, I am ignorant of Paulinus.**" He 
who gathers not with you scatters; that is, he who is not 
of Christ is of Antichrist. 

Now, alas! after the creed of Nicaea, after the decision 
at Alexandria,**” in which the West took an equal share, 
the bishops of the Arians and the Donatists **” are demand- 
ing of me, a Roman, a new phrase, “‘ three hypostases.” °° 


350f Exodus, XII, 22. 

850g The orthodox clergy from Egypt in exile. Vide supra, pp. 553, 657. 

350h The rival bishops in the see of Antioch. Vitalis had been consecrated by 
Apollinarius in 376. Vide supra, pp. 550, 611, 615. 

350i The council which met at Alexandria in 362, the year after the death of 
Constantius, under the presidency of Athanasius, and at which Eusebius of Ver- 
cellae was present and Lucifer of Cagliari was represented, before the return of 
these two exiles to the West. Vide supra, p. 550. 

350) The word Jerome uses for Donatists is ‘“‘Campenses” or “ countryfolk.” 
The Donatists were said to draw their support mainly from the country districts. 

350k The Greek word, “ hypostasis,” was now being used by the neo-orthodox 
Homoiousians in the sense in which the Westerners used the Latin “ persona,” to 
indicate the personal subsistence of Father, Son and Spirit respectively in the 
Trinity. The same party used the word, “ousia,” to signify the substance or 
essence in which the Three were One. ‘“ Hypostasis,” however, had been also 
employed by the older Arians in the sense of substance and in that sense the three 
hypostases had been condemned at Nicaea. Jerome, like many other Westerners, 
was suspicious of the word and felt that ‘“‘ three hypostases ” might still be inter- 
preted as “three substances” or tritheism. Supra, p. 550 and n. 186. 


660 THE SEE OF PETER 


What apostles, I ask them, gave us that? What new Paul, 
teacher of the gentiles, taught us that? We inquire what 
they suppose we can understand by “‘ three hypostases ”’; 
they reply, “‘ three persons subsisting.” We answer that 
we believe in that, but the sense is not enough; they demand 
the actual phrase, for some sort of poison lurks in the syl- 
lables. We cry: ‘If any man confess not the three hypo- 
stases or three inhypostatized, that is, the three persons 
subsisting, let him be anathema!” and because we do not 
repeat their very words, they pronounce us heretics. Yet 
if anyone who understands “ hypostasis ” as ‘ ousia ” *° 
does not say there is one hypostasis in three persons, he is an 
alien from Christ; but at that declaration we are blasted 
along with you under the brand of Sabellianism.**™ 

Issue your commandment, I beg, if you please, and then 
I shall not fear to speak of the three hypostases. At your 
bidding, a new creed shall be set up after the Nicene and 
we orthodox shall confess in words like the Arians’. All 
schools of secular learning take ‘‘ hypostasis ” to be nothing 
but “‘ ousia ” [substance] and will anyone, I ask, with blas- 
phemous lips preach three substances? The nature of God 
is one only, which is true. . . . But since that one nature 
is perfect and one Deity exists in three persons, which is 
true, and is one nature, whoever says that there are three 


objects, that is, three hypostases, meaning ‘ ousias,” is 


trying under the name of piety to declare that there are 
three natures. And if this is so, why do we separate our- 
selves from the Arians, seeing that we are united with them 
in perfidy? Let Ursinus join with your blessedness, let 
Auxentius associate with Ambrose!**’" Far be this from 
the faith of Rome; may the devout hearts of its people never 
imbibe such sacrilege! Let us be satisfied to speak of one 


8501 J.¢., as what the Latins meant by “ substance.” 

850m The Homoiousians felt that the western hesitation to accept “ hypo- 
stasis ” in their sense was due to a taint of Sabellianism. Supra, p. 550. 

8502 For Ursinus and Auxentius vide supra, pp. 600, 538. 


Te i Ee ee se eee ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 661 


substance and three persons subsisting, perfect, equal, co- 
eternal! Let us, if you please, not mention the three hy- 
postases but keep to one only! It tends to bad feeling when 
the meaning is the same but the words differ. Let us be 
satisfied with the creed we have learned! Or if you think 
that we ought to admit the three hypostases under their 
interpretation, we will not refuse, but, believe me, poison 
lurks beneath the honey. The angel of Satan has trans- 
formed himself into an angel of light. They explain ‘ hy- 
postasis ” correctly but when I say that I hold the belief 
which they themselves are expounding, they call me heretic. 
Why do they cling so strenuously to that one word? What 
are they hiding beneath their ambiguous speech? If they 
believe in accordance with their interpretation, I do not 
condemn their views. If I believe as they themselves 
pretend to do, they should permit me too to express their 
meaning in my words. 

Therefore I implore your blessedness, by the crucified 
Savior of the world, by the Trinity of one substance, to 
authorize me by letter either to speak or to refuse to speak 
of the hypostases. And since perhaps the letter-carriers 
may be unable to find the obscure spot where I live, gra- 
ciously address your communication to the priest Evagrius, 
whom you know well. Will you at the same time inform me 
with whom I should hold communion at Antioch, for the 
Donatists, who are uniting with the heretics of Tarsus,’’”’ 
boast that they have the authority of your communion in 
preaching the three hypostases with the old meaning. 


Ibid., XVI, To Damasus. Text. C. T. G. Schoenemann, 
OP..Cil.,° 379-350. 
The importunate woman in the gospel at last deserved to 
be heard.**? Even though the door had been shut and 


3500 The Arians were in possession at Tarsus. 350p Luke, XVIII, 2-5. 


662 THE SEE OF PETER 


barred and it was midnight, the friend received bread from 
his friend.**°* God himself, whom no resistant power can 
bend, was overcome by the publican’s prayers.” The city 
of Nineveh, which was doomed for its sin, survived by its 
mourning.*’*’* Why these repeated instances and this long 
preliminary? In order that you, who are great, may cast 
your eyes upon one who is small, that the rich shepherd may 
not despise the puny sheep. .. . 

[A brief account of his troubles.| I meanwhile cry 
out: ‘‘ Whoever is joined to the See of Peter, is mine! ” 
Meletius, Vitalis and Paulinus say they belong to you. I 
might believe it if one of them declared it. As it is, either 
two of them are lying or else all. So I implore your blessed- 
ness, by the cross of the Lord, by the passion of Christ, the 
necessary glory of our faith, to follow the apostles in merit 
as you follow them in honor. So may you sit with the 
Twelve upon the judgment-seat, so may another gird you 
with Peter in your old age,’*** so may you obtain the citizen- 
ship of heaven with Paul, as you notify me by letter with 
whom I should hold communion in Syria! Do not scorn the 
soul for whom Christ died! 


Evangelium Duodecim Apostolorum.™ Extracts translated 


into German and quoted by F. Haase, Apostel und 

Evangelisten in den _ ortentalischen U berlieferungen 

(Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, IX, pt. 1-3), 126- 

129. 

I 

When the days of his exaltation were fulfilled, he called 
the apostles and said unto them: ‘ Lo, the days of my de- 
parture from this world are nigh to be fulfilled. What my 


350a Luke, XI, 5-8. 850s Jonas, ITT, 5-10. 
350r Luke, XVIII, 13-14. 350t John, XXI, 18. 


351 A Coptic apocryphal work of the middle or latter part of the fourth 


century. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE : 663 


Father has given me, that have I given you. I have not left 
you without imparting to you all that you desire. 

Peter, thou art the beginning of the calling of thy breth- 
ren. Come to me on this rock, that I may bless thee and 
make thee known before all the world. Never shall thy 
head feel pain nor thine eyes lack light at thy going hence. 
Thy nails shall not wither. Thy hair shall not fall. The 
festering grave shall not corrupt thy body forever. No 
wrinkle shall appear upon thy skin forever. Incline thy 
head to me, O Peter! The right hand of my Father is laid 
upon thee, wherefore I ordain thee archbishop. ... Let 
the four and twenty elders fill their vials with sweet odors 
and pour them over thee today,*” O Peter, to ordain thee 
archbishop. Let the four beasts praise me and my Father 
today and sing the ‘ Thrice holy,’ for today my chosen Peter 
shall be ordained archbishop. Ye seven aeons of light, open 
one upon another, for the power of my Father shall descend 
from you and rest upon the mouth of my chosen Peter. Ye 
treasuries of heaven and ye dwelling-places of my kingdom, 
rejoice today, for your keys shall be given to my chosen 
Peter. Ye dominions and powers of heaven, rejoice, for we 
shall give unchangeable power forever to the tongue of Peter. 
Ye thrones and princes, rejoice today, for I shall give to my 
chosen Peter fatherhood over tens of thousands forever. O 
all thou earth, rejoice today, for I have given to one who is 
compassionate the power to bind and loose. O Paradise, 
rejoice today, and shed forth a sweet odor, for I will put 
an incorruptible robe upon Peter forever. O Hell, be sorrow- 
ful today with thy powers, for I have pledged to my chosen 
Peter a covenant forever; for I will build my Church and 
the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” 

And when Jesus had said this to Peter on the mount, he 
said unto him: ‘‘ Simon Peter, tell me. Who am I?” And 
Peter straightway looked up into heaven and saw the seven 


352 Revelation, V, 8. 


664 THE SEE OF PETER 


heavens opened one upon another; he saw the glory of the 
Father and all the hosts of heaven descending upon the 
mount for the ordination of the bishop; he saw the right 
hand of the good Father descending, his head of the same 
aspect as the Son,°”* filled with the Holy Spirit. And when 
he saw him, he fell down prostrate and cried out as he lay 
there and said: ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God!” Jesus said unto him: “ Blessed art thou, Simon 
Bariona, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to thee 
but my Father who is in heaven. Now go hence, that I may 
give thy tongue the power of my tongue to loose and to 
bind.” Then he laid his hand upon his head and all the 
heavenly hosts sang the Trisagion, so that the stones which 
were on the mount cried out with them: “ Worthy, worthy, 
worthy is the father, the archbishop Peter!”” When Peter 
had received this great honor, his countenance shone. He 
shone before the apostles like the sun, like Moses of old 
time. 428 


II 354 


Then [after the Ascension | the Father with the Son and 
the Holy Spirit stretched forth his hand over the head of 
Peter and he ordained him archbishop of the whole world. 
And he blessed him and said: ‘‘ Thou shalt be the head of 
the leaders in my kingdom and thou shalt be it likewise in 
the whole world. For I, my well-beloved Son and the Holy 
Spirit have laid our hands upon thee. And whatever thou 
shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven and what- 
ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. No 
man shall be exalted above thee and thy throne and whoever 
has not the consecration of thy throne, his hand shall be 
thrust down. Thy breath shall be filled with the breath of 

853 An expression, of course, of the Nicene orthodox doctrine of the unity of 
the Son and the Father. 


354 This extract is from a slightly later version of the same apocryphal 
Evangelium. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 66s 


the Holy Spirit, so that he whom thou shalt baptize shall 
verily receive the Holy Spirit.” All the hosts of heaven 
cried: ‘“‘Amen! Alleluja!” 


Ephraim the Syrian, Comments on Peter. Text. Evangelii 
concordantis expositio facta a S. Ephraemo in Lat., 
transl., J. B. Aucher and G. Moesinger, 51 and 231-232. 
(Quoted by F. Haase, op. cit., 168-169.) 


He [Simon] was a timid man, because he was overcome 
by fear at the voice of a maid.*’’ He was poor, because he 
could not even pay the tribute for himself, that was half a 
stater,’° and he said: ‘‘ Silver and gold have I none.” *” 
And he was foolish, because after he had begun to deny the 
Lord, he knew not how to escape by any pretext... . 

And thus Simon, who was terrified by a maid, felt no 
terror at all at the Romans but with a stout heart adjured 
them to crucify him with his head downward toward the 
earth.*** By night Simon denied, by day he confessed. By 
the burning coals he denied, by the burning coals he con- 
_ fessed. When he denied, the earth was witness; when he 
confessed, the earth and sea, each according to its nature, 
were present to witness. 


Ibid. Text. S. Ephraemi Syri Hymni et Sermones, ed. and 
trans. into Latin by T. J. Lamy, I, 411-412, Prolego- 
mena, LXXV. 


Our Lord chose Simon Peter and appointed him chief of 
the apostles, foundation of the holy Church and guardian of 
his establishment. He appointed him head of the apostles 

855 Mark, XIV, 66-70. 


356 Matthew, XVII, 23-26 (Douay Version) ; 24-27 (King James Version). 
857 Acts, ITI, 6. 358 Supra, p. 152. 


666 THE SEE OF PETER 


and commanded him to feed his flock and teach it laws for 
preserving the purity of its beliefs. . . . 

‘Simon, my disciple, I have appointed thee as founda- 
tion of the holy Church; I have called thee ere this Peter, 
because thou shalt support all my building; thou art the 
overseer *”” of those who build for me my Church on earth; 
if they desire to build it in any way wrongly, do thou, the 
foundation, prevent them; thou art the head of the fountain 
from which my doctrine is drawn, thou art the head of my 
disciples; through thee I shall give drink to all nations; 
thine is that life-giving sweetness which I bestow; I have 
chosen thee to be as the first-born in my society and to 
become heir of my treasures; I have given thee the keys of 
my kingdom. Lo, I have made thee chief over all my 
treasures.” **° 


4. THE IMPERIAL CONFIRMATION OF ROMAN 
JURISDICTION 


The Roman Synod of 378, Address to the Emperors Gratian 
and Valentinian II. Text. G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum 
Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, III, 624. 


It is an extraordinary testimony to your glorious piety, 
most clement princes, that when we, an almost innumerable 
multitude, had gathered from the divers regions of Italy at 
the sublime altar of the Apostolic See and were considering 
what requests to make of you on behalf of the churches, 
we were not able to think of anything better than what you 
out of your spontaneous interest have already granted. We 
saw also that we should feel no shame at asking, that your 


859 Lamy’s Latin rendering for this word is “inspector.” It is, however, in 
Syriac the same which is used for “ bishop.” 

860 A Syrian hymn of this century derives from Peter the power of the priest 
to consecrate and ordain, as follows: ‘Simon took the fish which he had caught 
and offered them to the Lord. Our priest, through the power he has received 
from Peter, has taken virgins and innocents and offered them in the feast to the 
Lord of the feast.” Quoted by F. Haase, Apostel und Evangelisten in den 
orientalischen Uberlieferungen, p. 173. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 667 


bounties were not dependent upon petitions and that a series 
of imperial decrees stands already in our favor. As for the 
justice of this present petition, we succeeded long ago in 
obtaining the things we are now requesting but we still need 
to repeat our requests, for we have so entirely failed to 
secure the execution of the promises given to us that we 
now beg to have them given afresh. And while wicked 
miscreants, most clement emperors, are demonstrating their 
mad folly, may your righteousness feel increasing obligation 
to bestow your mercies often upon the Church! 

For at first, filled with the divine spirit and, by the Lord’s 
grace, pursuant to the commandment of the holy apostles, 
whose approval you hold in high esteem, you decided to 
restore the body of the Church, which the reckless Ursinus 
had torn asunder by his efforts to usurp honor beyond his 
merits. ‘Then when he, the prime mover, had been con- 
demned and the others who had joined him for love of dis- 
order had been duly removed from that dangerous conspir- 
acy, you agreed that the bishop of Rome should conduct the 
trial of the other bishops of the churches, so that the high 
priest of religion and his associates might judge concerning 
religion, for fear that disparagement might be done to the 
priestly office, if, as might frequently happen, a priest could 
anywhere be lightly subjected to the frivolous sentence of a 
profane judge. 

. . . [|The standards and methods of episcopal courts 
are different from those of secular courts and the former are 
better fitted to deal with questions of religion. They do not 
resort to torture. | | 

But Ursinus, although long since banished by your 
clemency’s edict, is trying in secrecy, by means of those men 
whom he sacrilegiously and illegally ordained, to win over 
all the evil-minded. Some bishops, who unfortunately are 
still in the churches, have been incited by his example, to 
form a conspiracy of wicked insolence and argue lawlessly 


668 THE SEE OF PETER 


that they should not accept the judgment of the Ro- 
man bishop, even as men argue who know that by their 
deserts they should be condemned or as those who 
have been condemned appeal to a mob of the com- 
mon populace and threaten their judges with terror of 
deathei2- Ay: 

The bishop of Parma, deposed by our verdict, impudently 
retains his church. And Florentius of Pozzuoli, condemned 
and deposed, who then troubled your serene ears and pro- 
cured a rescript to the effect that if he had been deposed 
by sentence of the priesthood of the city of Rome, there 
must be no resistance to the sentence, crept back after six 
years to his city, seized a church and by his audacity excited 
wild riots in the very town of Pozzuoli from which he had 
been driven out. 

In Africa, your clemency ordered that the case of Res- 
titutus “** should be tried by the bishops. He should have 
submitted but instead he defiantly evaded the requirement 
of pleading his case. 

In Africa also, you commanded that the sacrilegious 
second baptizers *** should be expelled. After their expul- 
sion, they ordained Claudian, who then came as a pseudo- 
bishop to create disturbance in the city of Rome. Contrary 


to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, contrary to gospel 


law, he declares that all the bishops of past and present times 
have possessed no mysteries *** but have been, as we might 
say, pagans. Your serenity has indeed ordered that he 
should be removed from Rome and returned to his own 
country. But disregarding this decree, he still remains, 
though often arrested, and does not hesitate to administer 
second baptism frequently to poor persons and freedmen, 
whom he bribes with money. He does harm rather through 
261 On Restitutus of Carthage, vide supra, p. 603. 


862 The descendants of the Donatists of Constantine’s reign. Supra, pp. — 


450-453, 463 ff. : 
863 J.e¢,, have had no valid sacraments, 


eS Se ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 669 


his following than by his claim to a power which manifestly 
no man can bestow twice. 

To crown all, the faction of Ursinus stirred up a few 
men, who had profaned the sacred mysteries by rejoining the 
synagogue, and caused them to aim at the life of our holy 
brother Damasus. The blood of innocents was shed and 
frauds were concocted which your pious oversight detected 
by an intuition almost divine. The church was despoiled of 
nearly all her ministers. It is easy to see how, by their 
stratagems, when he who has the office of judge in all dis- 
putes “* heard the suit, there was no one competent to pass 
sentence on the lapsed nor on the seditious invaders of the 
episcopacy. 

But since, by your serene judgment, the innocence of 
our honored brother Damasus has been proven, the truth 
has become plain and the fellow Isaac ** has received his 
merited fate for his inability to substantiate his accusations. 
So now we beseech your clemency that we be not again 
harassed by numerous lawsuits. May your piety deign to 
enact that anyone who is condemned either by this court or 
by any of our catholic courts and who attempts illegally to 
retain his church or who, when summoned by sacerdotal 
authority, contemptuously refuses to appear, shall be sum- 
moned by officials of the State, the prefects of the prefecture 
of Italy or the vicar of the city of Rome, and come to Rome. 
If a situation of the kind occurs in a remote region, let the 
case be referred through the local tribunal to the metropoli- 
tan. If the offender is a metropolitan, he shall perforce 
come to Rome or else be directed to appear without delay 
before those whom the Roman bishop names as judges. In 
this way, men who have been deposed will be removed from 


864 J e., the city prefect, from whose court the case of Damasus was carried 
to the emperor Gratian. 

865 Isaac was the author of several theological treatises during his stay in the 
Church. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. XXXII, p. 1541; G. Morin, Revue 
d’Histoire et de Littérature Réligieuse (Paris, 1899), Vol. IV, pp. 97 sqq.; L. 
Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, p. 371, n. 2, 


670 THE SEE OF PETER 


the places in which they were priests and not usurp again 
impudently the post of which they have been rightfully de- 
prived. However, if the metropolitan or any of the bishops 
are suspected of partiality or prejudice, let an appeal be 
granted either to the bishop of Rome or to a council of 
fifteen bishops of the vicinity. Whoever is sentenced to 
exclusion, let him be still and submit. But if he does not 
respect the judgment of God, then let him be coerced, so 
that we may live in peace and concord with due thankful- 
ness to our Lord and ascribe the safety of the people to 
your serenity. 

Our honored brother Damasus, whose case furnishes 
proof of your judgment, should not be put in a position 
inferior to those to whom he is officially equal, whom he 
excels in the prerogative of his Apostolic See and who are 
subject to the public courts from which your edict has re- 
moved him, our priestly head. After your decision in his 
case, he did not refuse your judgment but seeks to keep 
the honor you conferred upon him. For in the realm of 
civil laws, what life can be better protected than that which 
depends upon the judgment of your clemency? In any 
matter also affecting the exalted person of a bishop, provi- 
sion should be made by strict ecclesiastical ordinances that 
not names only but characters should be taken into con- 
sideration and a scandalmonger who endeavors to asperse 
a high dignitary should be prevented from injuring one of 
impregnable innocence. An attack upon religion should be 
left to its ministers. 

Hear then this request, which the holy Damasus desires 
to refer to your piety rather than to execute himself and 
which is intended not to disparage anyone but to confer upon 
the emperors what is in idea nothing new and accords with 
the example of the ancients, namely, that a Roman bishop, 
if his case is not within the competence of an assembly of 
his fellow bishops, may defend himself before the court of 


Se eS ee 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 671 


_the emperor. Bishop Silvester, when accused by sacrilegious 
men, carried his case to your predecessor Constantine. 
Similar instances are mentioned in the Scriptures. When 
the holy apostle was imprisoned by a servant, he appealed 
unto Caesar and was sent to Caesar.**° Your majesty should 
look into the case in advance and if there is any doubt, 
determine what points need investigation, that the judge 
may be required to follow the procedure you have deemed 
best and not allowed to act according to his arbitrary 
WL EGP 


Gratian and Valentinian II, Rescript of 378, Collectio Avel- 
lana, 13. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum, XXXV, 54-58. 


Gratian and Valentinian, Augusti, to the vicar Aquilinus. 


[We wish to have our previous edicts enforced. The 
adherents of Ursinus have been ordered to withdraw to a 
distance of one hundred miles from Rome. You are to look 
up our letter of instructions with regard to them which we 
sent to your predecessor Simplicius.**’ Ursinus himself is 
now in prison at Cologne. Isaac has been dispatched to 
Spain, under pain of death if he makes more trouble. But 
we hear now from the council of bishops that Florentius of 
Pozzuoli, after a sentence of deposition, is still trying to stir 
up the Church and is holding unlawful meetings, relying on 
the indifference of the pagan magistrates for his immunity. 
Claudian from Africa is at Rome corrupting the faithful, 
in spite of our orders that he be returned. The schismatics 
have attacked “ the most holy See ” with shocking slanders 
and disturbed the people for whom the bishop “ is hostage 
to the Deity.” ** Hereafter you will banish everyone guilty 


366 Acts, XXV, 11. 

367 This letter was aes the edict of 374, part of which is contained in 
Codex Theodosianus, IX, 29, 1. 

368 “Pro quo ille divinitati obses est.” 


672 THE SEE OF PETER 


of such abominable conduct to a distance of one hundred 
miles from Rome and see too that they are expelled from the 
towns where they are damaging the churches. | 

11 It is furthermore our will that whoever is condemned 
by the judgment of Damasus, delivered with the counsel of 
five or seven bishops, or by judgment and counsel of the 
Catholics and attempts unlawfully to retain his church, or 
who when summoned to the ecclesiastical tribunal contuma- 
ciously refuses to appear, shall be arrested by the authority 
of the illustrious prefects of the prefectures of Gaul and 
Italy and sent to the episcopal court or remanded by the 
proconsuls and vicars to the city of Rome under escort. Or 
if any such case of insolent misbehavior occurs in regions 
at a distance, the entire conduct of that case shall be re- 
served for examination by the metropolitan bishop of the 
province. Or if the offender himself is a metropolitan, then 
perforce he shall go without delay to Rome or to such men 
as the Roman bishop appoints as judges, with the under- 
standing, however, that whoever are deposed shall be ex- 
cluded only from the confines of that city in which they 
were priests. For we punish leniently those who deserve 
severity and we requite their sacrilegious disobedience more 
mercifully than it merits. And if a metropolitan bishop or 
any other prelate is suspected of partiality or prejudice, the 
accused may appeal to the bishop of Rome or to a council 
of fifteen bishops of the vicinity, provided that after the 
trial has been concluded what was settled shall not be 
opened again. We desire also that the principle which 
natural justice has dictated to our minds in the conduct of 
minor business and the hearing of trivial cases should be 
applied much more thoroughly in cases of gravity, so that 
it may not be easy for a miscreant, notorious for depravity, 
to assume by foul slanders the role of plaintiff against a 
person of distinction or to offer testimony as witness in the 
accusation of a bishop. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 673 


5. THE FAITH OF ROME PRESCRIBED AS THE 
STANDARD FOR THE EAST 


Damasus, Letter to the Eastern Bishops, quoted by 
Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 10. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LX XXII, 1219-1222. 


And when the renowned Damasus heard of the rise of 
this | Apollinarian] heresy, he announced the expulsion not 
only of Apollinarius but also of Timothy, his follower. And 
he informed the eastern bishops of it by a letter which I 
have thought valuable to insert in my history. 

The letter of Damasus, bishop of Rome.*” 

** Since your love renders to the Apostolic See the rever- 
ence which is its due, do you, most honored sons, accept 
much for yourselves. 

Even though we are within that holy church in which the 
holy apostle sat and taught us how we ought to guide the 
rudder which we have received, we confess nevertheless that 
we are unworthy of our honor. But for this very reason 
we strive with all our might, if perchance we may attain to 
the glory of his blessedness. Be then hereby informed that 
we have sometime since condemned Timothy, the unhallowed 
disciple of the heretic Apollinarius, with his impious doc- 
trine, and we believe that what remains of him will obtain 
no consideration whatever henceforth. But if that old 
serpent, who has once and again been smitten, revives for 
his own undoing and continues without the Church, cease- 
lessly endeavoring to overthrow the faithless with his deadly 
poisons, do you still avoid him like a pestilence and be mind- 
ful of the faith of the apostles, that is, of that which was 
set down in writing by the Fathers at Nicaea. Do you abide 
on firm ground, strong in the faith and immovable, and 
permit hereafter neither your clergy nor your laity to listen 

369 Written in 378. 


674 THE SEE OF PETER 


to vain reasonings and idle speculations. For we have once 
for all furnished a pattern and he who knows himself a 
Christian may keep it. It was committed to us by the 
apostles, for the holy Paul says: ‘‘ If any man bring you 
another gospel than that ye have received, let him be 
anathema.” *” Christ, the Son of God, our Lord, gave by 
his own passion abundant salvation to the race of man, that 
he might free from every sin the whole man beset by sins. 
Whoever says that he had less of humanity or less of divinity 
is inspired by the spirit of the devil and reveals himself 
as a son of Gehenna. 

Why then do you ask me again for my condemnation of 
Timothy? Here, by judgment of the Apostolic See, in the 
presence of Peter, bishop of the city of Alexandria, he has 
been condemned, along with his teacher Apollinarius, who 
also in the day of judgment will undergo his merited punish- 
ments and torments. And if, acting like a man with hope, 
he is still deluding some unstable persons, although by de- 
molishing his creed he has demolished his true hope in Christ, 
then there will perish with him in similar manner whoever 
wills to withstand the rule of the Church. God keep you in 
health, most honored sons! ” 

And the bishops who were assembled in great Rome wrote 
other letters against various heresies, which I have thought 
necessary to insert in my history. [There follows a series 
of anathemas against a long list of theological errors, said 
_by Theodoret to have been sent by Damasus “ to Bishop 
Paulinus °*” in Macedonia, when he was at Thessalonica.” | 

870 Galatians, I, 8. 

371 Paulinus is probably Paulinus of Antioch. The communication may have 


been sent to him when he was on his way home from Rome, after the council 
of 382. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 675 


Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius, Edict of February 
27, 360, Codex Theodostanus, XVI, 1, 2. Text. C. 
Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums, 4th ed., 


134. 


It is our will that all the peoples subject to the govern- 
ment of our clemency shall follow that religion which the 
holy Peter delivered to the Romans, as pious tradition from 
him to the present times declares it, and as the pontiff 
Damasus manifestly observes it, as also does Peter, bishop 
of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity; that is, that in 
accordance with the apostolic teaching and gospel doctrine, 
we should believe in the deity of the Father and the Son 
and the Holy Spirit, of equal majesty, in sacred Trinity. 
Those who follow this law we order shall be included under 
the name of catholic Christians. All others we pronounce 
mad and insane and require that they bear the ignominy 
of teachers of heresy; their conventicles shall not receive 
the title of churches; they shall be chastised first by divine 
vengeance and then by the punishment of our indignation, 
with divine approval. 


Theodoret, Historia Ecclestastica, V, 2-3. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LX XXII, 1197-1201. 


He [Gratian, on his accession to complete empire in 378] 
at once displayed the piety which he felt and offered the 
first fruits of his empire to the King of all. For he drew 
up an edict to the effect that the shepherds who had been 
driven out should be recalled and restored to their flocks 
and that the houses of God should be delivered to those 
who were in communion with Damasus. This Damasus was 
bishop of Rome, noted for his praiseworthy life, who aimed 
to speak and act always in defense of the doctrine of the 
apostles. After Liberius, he had succeeded to the adminis- 


676 THE SEE OF PETER 


tration of the church. And Gratian sent out with this edict 
Sapor, a general, a famous man of the time, and he instructed 
him to expel the preachers of the blasphemy of Arius, like 
wild beasts, from the sacred folds and to restore the good 
shepherds to God’s flocks. And in every nation this was 
accomplished without dissension but in Antioch, the chief 
city of the East, a contest took place, as follows. 

. . . [Account of the three parties that still existed in 
the churches of Antioch, led by Paulinus, Meletius and 
Apollinarius respectively.| ... Then when the general 
Sapor arrived and published the imperial edict, Paulinus 
insisted that he was of the party of Damasus and Apolli- 
narius made the same claim, concealing his heterodoxy. 
But the godly Meletius remained silent, allowing them to 
wrangle.’ Then the sagacious Flavian, who was still at that 
time in the ranks of the priests,’ spoke first to Paulinus 
in the hearing of the general. “If, my friend, you receive 
the communion of Damasus, explain to us clearly how your 
doctrines agree. For although he acknowledges one sub- 
stance in the Trinity, he unquestionably preaches three 
persons.*’* But you, on the contrary, deny the Trinity of 
the persons. Show us then how your doctrines are in unison 
and take the churches in accordance with the edict.” So, 
having shut the mouth of Paulinus with this challenge, he 
turned to Apollinarius. “I am astonished that you, my 
friend, fight so viciously against the truth, when you know 
perfectly that the admirable Damasus declares that our 
nature was assumed in its entirety by God, the Word. But 
you persistently assert the opposite, for you deprive our 
intelligence of its salvation. If this charge against you is 
false, abjure now the strange doctrine you have invented, 


872 Compare this with Jerome’s picture of the situation, supra, p. 662. 

372a Flavian succeeded Meletius as bishop in 381. 

873 The Greek word is “ hypostases.” Paulinus was one of those conservative 
Nicenes who was unwilling to add to the unity of substance the Trinity of persons. 
Supra, p. 550. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 677 


profess the doctrine of Damasus and take the sacred build- 
ings.” ‘Thus the wise Flavian with his truthful arguments 
silenced their flow of words. 

Then Meletius, gentlest of all men, said in mild friendli- 
ness to Paulinus: “ Seeing that the Lord of the sheep has 
committed to me the care of these sheep and you have 
received the charge of the rest and our little ones are in 
devout communion with one another, let us, my friend, 
unite our flocks and have done with the contest for the 
leadership. Let us feed our sheep together and minister 
to them together! And if there is jealousy over the central 
chair,* I will undertake to dispel that too. For I will lay 
the Gospel in that chair and let us seat ourselves on either 
side of it. If I am the first to reach the end of life, then 
you, my friend, alone shall hold the chief place. And if 
the end comes first to you, I in my turn, to the best of my 
power, will care for the sheep.” So mild and friendly were 
the words of the godly Meletius. But Paulinus would not 
accept this proposal. And the general, who was judge of 
their conversation, delivered the churches to the great 
Meletius. 


6. Tue CouncIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE 
REVIVAL OF EASTERN SEPARATISM 


Damasus, Epistolae, V. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Latina, XIII, 365-369. 


Damasus to his dearly beloved brothers, Acholius, 
Eurydicus, Severus, Uranius, Philip and John.*™” 

The reading of your loving letter, dearest brothers, has 
plunged me into deep sorrow, that at the very time when 


874 J.e., the chair of the bishop in the center of the apse or chief place in the 
church. 

375 Acholius was bishop of Thessalonica. Eurydicus and the other four to 
whom this letter is addressed were probably also Macedonian bishops. The year 
is 380, 


678 THE SEE OF PETER 


the heretics have been trodden down by the might of God, 
a deputation should come from Egypt with a demand con- 
trary to the rule of church discipline, and endeavor to ap- 
point a Cynic, an alien to our faith, to the bishopric of the 
city of Constantinople. What insanity, what astounding 
presumption, passing our comprehension! It makes clear 
how busybodies, who presume to do too much, fail to under- 
stand what they ought to do. They had not read the words 
of the apostle: ‘“‘If a man have long hair, it is a shame to 
him.” °° They did not realize that the philosopher’s habit 
does not become the appearance of a Christian. They had 
not heard the apostle’s warning not to be spoiled of the robe 
of a sound faith by philosophy and vain deceits, in which 
they had long ago believed.*” . . . Philosophy is the friend 
of the wisdom of the world but the enemy of faith, the poison 
of hope and the bitterest foe of love. What harmony is 
there between the temple of God and idols? What part has 
Christ in Belial? 

But some will say perhaps: “ He was a Christian.” 
Never should the name of Christian be bestowed on one who 
wears the dress of an idol; it is not possible for one who 
aims thus to ingratiate himself with the heathen to have any 
fellowship with us in perfect faith. So it was fitting that 
the Egyptians should be denounced by everyone when they 
departed, condemning their own mistake, and that he then, 
with hair shorn and without any proper ordination, should 
both suffer the loss to his pate and fail to achieve his ambi- 
tion. It was right that a wrong enterprise should be foiled 
by general authority. 

For the next step, I hear that it has been decided to hold 
a council at Constantinople ** and I urge you to put forth 

876 J Corinthians, XI, 14. The Cynics let their hair and beards grow long. 
Their garb was a small pallium or cloak over a short tunic, somewhat less than 
ordinary clothing. 


377 Colossians, II, 8. 
878 The council of Constantinople of 381. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 679 


sincere efforts to have a bishop elected for that city who 
has nothing reprehensible about him, so that, by God’s 
favor, the peace of the catholic priesthood may be con- 
firmed unbroken and no controversies arise hereafter in the 
Church. ... [I admonish you also not to allow your 
bishops to move from one city to another, contrary to the 
statutes of the Fathers. |°*” 


Damasus, Efistolae, VI. Text. J. P. Migne, Patrologia 
Latina, XIII, 369-370. 


[To Acholius, bishop of Thessalonica. A short note 
added to the above to introduce Rusticus, the “ silen- 
tiarius ” **° of the emperor Gratian, who had received bap- 
tism at Rome and was now going on a mission to Mace- 
donia. | 


Gregory of Nazianzus, Poemata, II, 2, xi, Carmen de Vita 
Sua (381), Il, 562, passim ad fin. Text. J. P. Migne, 
Patrologia Graeca, XX XVII, 1067—1166.°" 


562. Nature hath not bestowed on us two suns 

But she hath made two Romes, to be the lights 
For all the world, an old power and a new, 
Differing from one another, inasmuch 
As one illumes the East and one the West, 
But beauty matching beauty equally. 


879 Gregory of Nazianzus, whom the Catholics of Constantinople had already 
chosen as their bishop and who was of the party of Basil and Meletius, had been 
some time previously ordained bishop in the Asiatic town of Sasima and again at 
Nazianzus, although he had never served. 

880 The “silentiarius” of this period was a sort of privy councillor, one of 
the high court officials. 

381 This long, narrative poem, a sort of apologia for his career in Constan- 
tinople, was composed by Gregory upon his abdication from the see of that city 
and his withdrawal from the Council of 381. Vide supra, pp. 620-623. 


680 


THE SEE OF PETER 


The faith of her who hath been from of old 
Even yet is steady, holding all the West 

Firm in the doctrine of salvation; 

So rightly she, who sitteth above all, 

Adoreth all the harmony of God.*** 

But the new city, that once stood so fair, 

(She I call mine, although no longer mine, ) 
Now lieth fallen in the depths of ruin. 

For since that light town, brimming o’er with sins, 
Alexandria, fever heat of folly, 

Sent forth the abominable desolation, 

Arius ecthax 

We have walked divided over many roads... . 


[Description of the dissensions in the eastern church over 
the dogma of the Trinity. The fiasco of the Cynic Maximus, 
the Alexandrian candidate for the see of Constantinople. | 


856. Sages, unfold the event! To me it seems 


Past comprehending, if no sage explain, 
How Peter,*** he the arbiter of bishops, 
Who first acknowledged me with letters fit, 
Free manifestly from duplicity, | 

As his own letters to me testify, 

And honored me with tokens of my see, 
Now sent to us a hart in place of maid.** 
’Tis dark to me, it needs interpreter. .. . 


[End of the affair of Maximus. Gregory’s own work and 
preaching in the city. The arrival of Theodosius and 


882 The Greek of these two lines, 571-572, is as follows: 


Kados dixatov tiv wpdedpov Trav dd\wy 
uv, 0 \ a r e 
OAnv céBovcav tiv Oeod cvpdwviar. 


I.e., it is just that she who presides over all adores all the harmony of God. The 
allusion in the last phrase is, of course, to the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. 
383 Peter, metropolitan of Alexandria. Supra, p. 614. 
384 The figure is taken from Agamemnon’s substitution of a hart at Aulis for 
his daughter Iphigenia, whom he had sworn to sacrifice. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 681 


Gregory’s installation, first by him and then by a council, 
on the episcopal throne. | 


1514. Here [between Egypt and Constantinople] there 
presided a most holy man, 

Simple in habit, artless, full of God, 
Calm-eyed, a sign of courage and devotion 
To all beholders, the Spirit’s handiwork. 
Who knows not him whom these my words depict, 
The head over the church of Antioch, .. . 
Who much hath suffered for God’s Holy Ghost, 
F’en if once led by alien hands brief while 

_ Astray, now lit with grace of shining victories? **° 
These men ordained me in the sacred seat 
Despite my cries and groans; yet one sole thought 
Made me not quite refuse. Bear witness, Word! 
What was it? It is wrong to hide the truth. 
I thought in the vain fancying of my heart .. . 
If I possessed the power of this seat 
(For outward state adds much authority), 
Like a conductor with two choruses, 
Bringing both near together to himself, 
One thus, one so, as is the chorus law, 
I might make music out of foul discord... . 
The bishops and the teachers of the people, 
The givers of the Spirit, they who speak 
From their high seats the words that save the world, 
Who preach to all forever only peace 
With voices that resound throughout the churches, 
Against each other rage in bitterness, 
Vociferating, marshalling their allies, 
Blackening each other with fierce accusation, 
Attacking, being vanquished in attack, 


385 Meletius. Supra, pp. 550, 553, 612. 


682 : THE SEE OF PETER 


Contending to be foremost to destroy, 
And all for lust of dominance and rule, 
(How shall I cry these things aloud? What words?) 
Till they have laid our universe in ruins, 

As I said, when I first began my speech. 

This schism between East and West is plain 

A rift in thought more than in space and clime, 
For they are joined midway, if not at ends. 

But there is nought to join men split apart, 

Not by their piety (though their pride pretends it, 
Quick to deceive,) but by disputes for sees.*’ . .. 


386 


[Death of Meletius. Proposal in the council to elect an- 
other bishop to continue the opposition to Paulinus, the 
candidate at Antioch favored by the West. Gregory ad- 
dresses the assembly, urging it to take this chance for peace, 
recognize Paulinus and at his death let the reunited people 
choose one bishop for them all. | 


1635. ‘‘. ... And thus might come relief from many ills. 

By this we win the stranger to our side, 
A great thing (for the West seems now to me 
A stranger), and by trying a new way, 
Appease the city, that great, weary flock. 
Oh end at last, oh end the world’s long storm 
And pity those now sorely rent asunder, 
Those who are near their pain, those who come after! 
Let no man hope to show what may befall, 
If strife like this prevail for many years. 
Our holy and most venerable faith 
Hangs in suspense, whether it will be saved 
Or perish in the wreckage of our wars... . 

886 The Greek for this line, 1556, is Atoon ¢tAapxlas re kal povapxias. 


387 E.g., the quarrel as to who should be recognized as orthodox bishop of 
Antioch, Meletius or Paulinus. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 683 


Let us but yield a little and so reap 

A greater victory, and be saved by God 

And save the world now miserably destroyed! 
To conquer is not glory in all fields. 

A noble loss is better than base winning. . . .” 


[Outcries follow Gregory’s speech, and wrangling confu- 
sion. | 


1690. Behold how marvellous their reasoning! 

“Our practice must be guided by the sun. 

Our leader must be taken from that land 

Where God shone on us, clad in robe of flesh.” 
‘So then, shall we be tied to circumstance 

Nor know our leader is the flesh of Christ, 
Firstfruit of all our race? What if he here 

Was born,” says one, “‘ here likewise was the sin 
By which he here so speedily was slain, 

Whence came his rising and our own redemption!” 
‘Should not these disputants submit,” I said, 
“To those instructed ones who know the right? 
We see hereby their arrogance throughout. 

What is it that they need? Our sweet and fair 
Wellspring of ancient faith, that joined in one 
The nature worshipful of Triune God, 

Of which Nicaea once became the school. 

’Tis this I see disturbed and dark defiled 

By surging floods of men of shifty minds. . . .” 


[Sickened by the spectacle of insincerity, vulgar spite and 
selfishness, Gregory changes his dwelling-place to one farther 
from the church and plans to resign his office. His people 
entreat him to stay. | 


1796. Thus they lamented but I still withstood. 
And soon God sent the way for my release. 


684 THE SEE OF PETER 


For lo! there came on hasty summons thither 
The Macedonians and men of Egypt, framers 
Of laws and of the mysteries of God, 
Pelting us with the harsh wind of the West. 
Then rose against them all the eastern throng, 
Baring fierce teeth, like wild boars, for the fray 
(If I may like it to some tragedy). 
Looks full of fury, eyes aflame with fire, 
They met in battle. In the thick of strife, 
With passion more than reason in control, 
They cast some sharp aspersions e’en on me, 
Recalling rules now long ago outworn,’” 
Which chiefly meant that I, no doubt, was free. 
Not that they wished me ill or aimed to take 
My see for another; no, they sought to harm 
Those who had given me the see, as plain 
They told me in some secret messages. 
They meant not to endure that lawless pride 
Which showed itself in old and recent days. 
I meanwhile, like a horse in tether fast, 
Even while weak with suffering and disease, 
Ceased not in mind to lash out with my feet 
And neigh against my bondage and my reins, 
Wild to escape to fields and solitude. 
And when these men made charges, as I said, 
I broke my bonds and joyous snatched the ex- 
CUSCuir ca By 


[Gregory begs the council to let him go. He has been their 
Jonah and if they keep him, there will be new trouble. From 
them he goes to Theodosius and asks permission to leave 
the office and the assembly. | 


888 They recalled, apparently, the canons of previous councils, forbidding the 
translation of bishops from one see to another. Supra, pp. 498, 511 and n. 130. 
Gregory had been twice ordained before, to the sees of Sasima and Nazianzus, al- 
though he had never occupied the office in either place. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 685 


. . . Do thou impose on them concord and peace; 
Bid them lay down their arms, e’en for thy sake, 

If neither fear of God or hell suffice. 

Erect a trophy for this bloodless fight, 

Thou who hast quelled barbarians’ dauntless might. 
Demand of me,” —I showed him my grey hairs 
And drops of sweat that I had shed for God, — 

*“‘ To endure and suffer in the whole world’s stead. 
Thou knowest my misery when they set me here.” ... 


4 


18093. 


[Theodosius gives reluctant consent. Gregory tries before 
his departure to placate and reconcile everyone to his going. | 


1945. What give I to the churches? All my tears. 
For God has brought me to this, turned my life 
And twisted it through many changing rounds. 
What will befall them? Tell me, Word of God! 
I pray they come to that serene abode 
Where dwells my Trinity, that single flame, 
In whose dim shadows we now rise and soar. 


Council of Constantinople of 381, Canons, ILand III. Text. 
C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, II, Pt. I, 21-27. 


9 


II. The bishops in charge of a diocese *’ are not to 
go to churches outside their own boundaries nor bring con- 
fusion into the churches but, as the canons prescribe,*”° let 
the bishop of Alexandria alone control the administration 
in Egypt and the bishops of the East govern the East alone, 
having regard for the privileges of the church of Antioch, 
which are mentioned in the canons of Nicaea; and let the 

389 The “diocese” here is the civil division of the Empire of the fourth 
century. There were five in the East, the diocese of Egypt, of which Alexandria 
was the capital, the diocese of the East with Antioch as chief city, the diocese of 
Asia with Ephesus, of Pontus with Caesarea in Cappadocia and of Thrace with at 


first Heraclea, then Constantinople. 
390 The sixth canon of Nicaea. Supra, p. 485. 


686 THE SEE OF PETER 


bishops of the diocese of Asia have the management alone 
of affairs in Asia and the bishop of Pontus of affairs in Pontus 
and those of Thrace of affairs in Thrace. And let no bishops 
leave their diocese for ordinations or any other ecclesiastical 
functions, unless they be invited. If this canon concerning 
the diocese be observed, it is obvious that the synod of each 
province should regulate the business of that province in ac- 
cordance with the decrees of Nicaea.*” But the churches of 
God among heathen nations should be governed according 
to the practice which has prevailed since the Fathers. 

III. Notwithstanding, the bishop of Constantinople shall 
have the preéminence in honor after the bishop of See 
for Constantinople is New Rome.*”* 


Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 8-9. Text. J. P. 
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXXXII, 1212-1217. 


And the following summer [382], the majority of them 
[the eastern clergy] met again in that city [Constanti- 
nople|, for the needs of the Church brought them together 
once more, and they received a synodical letter from the 
bishops of the West, inviting them to go to Rome, because 
a great council was being assembled there. But they ex- 
cused themselves from the long journey on the ground that © 
nothing would be gained by it. And they sent a letter 
describing the storm that had overtaken their churches and 
hinting that the Westerners had been indifferent to it. And 
they inserted in their letter a summary of the apostolic faith. 
The letter itself will demonstrate plainly the fortitude and 
wisdom of the writers. 


391 The fifth canon of Nicaea defined the rights of provincial synods. There 
were several provinces in each diocese. 

392 This canon was included by Gratian in his Concordantia, dist. XXII, c. 3, 
but to it was added the note: “ This canon is one of those which the Apostolic See 
of Rome at first and for a long time afterwards refused to accept.” The phrase 
here translated “the preéminence in honor” is, in the Greek, ra mpeoBeta ris 
ryujs. For comment on it vide supra, p. 624 and n. 290. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 687 


“The holy synod of the orthodox bishops who have 
assembled in the great city of Constantinople, to their 
honored lords and most reverend brothers and fellow 
ministers, Damasus, Ambrose, Britton, Valerian, Acholius, 
Anemius, Basil*** and the other holy bishops who have 
assembled in the great city of Rome, greeting in the 
Lord. : 

It is probably superfluous to offer information to your 
reverences, as if you were ignorant, or to rehearse to you 
the multitude of the sufferings inflicted upon us by the 
power of the Arians. For we do not believe that your piety 
regards what befalls us as so trivial a matter that you need 
to be told of the sorrows with which you must be sympathiz- 
ing; nor were the tempests that engulfed us so light as to 
escape your notice. The time of our persecutions is still 
recent, so that their memory is fresh not only for those who 
suffered but also for those who in love made the sufferers’ 
pain their own. . . ._ [A brief reminder of their tribulations 
in the past and of the persistent activity of heretics in the 
churches. | 

You have, however, shown your brotherly love toward 
us and have invited us by the letters of our most devout 
emperor, as if we were your own members, to the synod 
which, by God’s will, you are convening at Rome, for al- 
though we were once condemned to endure buffeting alone, 
now that our rulers are agreed with us in religion, you will 
not reign without us but we are to reign with you, as the 
apostle says. Our desire was, if it had been possible, for 
us all as a body to leave our churches and gratify our long- 
ing for you instead of attending to their necessities. But 
who will give us the wings of a dove that we may fly away 
and be at rest with you? Such a proceeding would leave 
the churches totally unprotected, just as they are beginning 


393 Valerian was bishop of Aquileia and Anemius of Sirmium, Acholius, as 
we know, of Thessalonica. The sees of Britton and Basil are unknown. 


688 THE SEE OF PETER 


to recover, and the journey would be quite unfeasible for 
most of us. For we have come as far as Constantinople in 
compliance with the letter sent last year from your honors 
to the most religious ernperor Theodosius, after the council 
at Aquileia. We prepared ourselves only to come as far as 
Constantinople and we have brought the endorsement of the 
bishops who remained in the provinces for this council only. 
We neither foresaw the need of any longer journey nor did 
we hear anything of it before we met at Constantinople. 
Beside all this, the shortness of the interval allowed has 
given us no time to prepare for a longer expedition or to 
send word to all the bishops of our communion in the 
provinces and obtain their endorsements. 

Since then these considerations and many more besides 
have prevented most of us from coming, we have taken the 
next best step to further the general reconstruction and 
prove our love to you by urging our revered and honored 
fellow ministers and brothers, bishops Cyriacus, Eusebius 
and Priscian, to undertake happily the journey to you. 
Through them we shall make clear to you that our purpose 
is for peace and bent upon unity and that our zeal is for the 
right faith. ... [A statement of loyalty to the creed of 
Nicaea, followed by a condemnation of Sabellians, Arians 
and other heretics. | | 

This then in brief is our faith, which is preached by us 
without dissimulation. And you may be yet further satisfied 
regarding it, if you will deign to read the tome drawn up 
at Antioch by the synod which met there *** and the one 
issued last year at Constantinople by the ecumenical council, 
in which we confessed our faith at greater length and to 
which we added a statement anathematizing the heresies 
which have been lately devised. . . . [In accordance with 
the rule of Nicaea, we have recently filled the places of 
several important bishops, ordained Nectarius at Constan- 

394 The synod of 379, which accepted the Roman formula. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 689 


tinople in the presence of Theodosius, etc.] We request 
your reverences to rejoice with us over what we have law- 
fully and canonically accomplished. .. . 


7. THE RULE oF DAMASUS IN THE WEST 


Marcellinus and Faustinus, De Confessione Verae Fidei... 
Preces Valentiniano, Theodosio et Arcadio, 77-85, Col- 
lectio Avellana, Il. Text. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesi- 
asticorum Latinorum, XXXV, 28-30.°” 


. . . Moreover, even in the city of Rome, what bitter 
persecutions have been directed against the faithful! There 
the blessed bishop Aurelius, who held communion with the 
most blessed Gregory,’’’ was several times assaulted; yet 
this holy man, though often mistreated, died a natural death. | 
But the priest Macarius suffered worse injury at wicked 
hands. He was a priest in this same city of Rome, a man of 
extraordinary abstinence, who never cheered his stomach 
with wine nor invigorated his body with a dish of meat but 
softened his harsh diet only with oil and spent himself in 
fastings and prayers. By the merits of his faith and aus- 
terity, indeed, he won the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that he 
cast out demons from the bodies of persons possessed. We 
have said this much of his life and character that it may be 
plain how impious they are who do not allow such men to 
live within the Roman Empire. 

At this time, a cruel persecution was raging against us, in- 
stigated by that extraordinary archbishop, Damasus, and 
faithful priests were forbidden to gather freely by day the 
holy congregations of the people to worship Christ as God. 
So, because under these circumstances the sacraments of our 

we This petition was presented to the emperors at Constantinople in 383 
or 3 


4. 
896 Gregory of Granada in Spain, who belonged to the Luciferian or austere 
party. . 


690 THE SEE OF PETER 


salvation had to be administered at unusual hours or else 
stealthily, this holy priest Macarius was keeping vigils 
in a certain house, gathering the brotherhood together, so 
that the holy people might confirm their faith by divine 
lessons, at least at night. But the devil, who favors the 
wicked because the wicked favor the devil, would not endure 
to have the divine sacraments celebrated even in conceal- 
ment. The clergy of Damasus ere long set a trap and when 
they discovered that the priest Macarius was keeping sacred 
vigils with his people, they burst into the house with officers 
and scattered the unresisting people and seized the priest 
and would not lead him away but dragged him over the 
stones in such a manner as to inflict a fearful wound on 
his head and the next day they haled him before the judge 
as one guilty of a grave crime. ‘Then the judge, on the 
strength of an imperial rescript, attempted to compel and 
browbeat him to come to an agreement with Damasus. But 
the priest remembered the judgment of God and feared not 
the judge before him and spurned the communion of the 
perfidious Damasus and was therefore ordered into exile. 

But when he was at Ostia, he died from the brutality of 
his wound. Such was his holiness that even the bishop of 
that town, Florentius by name, who was in communion with 
Damasus, held him in reverence. For when the brothers 
had buried him in a certain ancient tomb, Florentius would 
not allow him to lie there, in what seemed an unbecoming 
sepulchre, but transferred him from that place and buried 
him in the basilica of the martyr Asterius, where he lies in 
the presbytery, in a fitting tomb. So by this service Floren- 
tius strove to separate himself as far as he could from the 
crime of Damasus. 

Let your serenity consider this! If you are willing that 
such offenses should be committed within the Roman Empire 
by men who are prevaricators against the holy and the 
faithful, have you no dread that the flood of the faithful 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 691 


will weigh down the Roman Empire? This same Damasus 
has assumed royal authority and attacked other catholic 
priests and laymen and sent them into exile, conducting his 
suits through pagan lawyers, with the judges showing him 
partiality, although your edicts were issued against heretics, 
not against Catholics, and Catholics who did not desert the 
true faith even under heretical emperors but suffered much 
oppression. Even of late he has tried to persecute cruelly 
the blessed bishop Ephesius, the fervent disciple of the holy 
faith, who was ordained for the unpolluted people of Rome 
by the steadfast bishop Taorgius, himself a man of unspotted 
faith. Through his lawyers he cited them before the judge 
Bassus,’ invidiously describing them by a false name, ac- 
cusing them under the title of Luciferians. But Bassus, who 
once revered the catholic faith, knew that there was no 
heretical corruption in Lucifer; was well aware, in fact, 
that he had endured ten years of exile for the catholic faith. 
And in his firm uprightness he overruled the accusations of 
Damasus, refusing to take steps to persecute men who were 
catholic and sound in faith and stating positively that the 
edicts of the emperors were plainly directed against heretics 
only, not against those who kept the holy faith without 
concern for the world. Then, for the first time, Damasus 
blushed, because one judge had been found who righteously 
interpreted and executed the imperial edicts.*”* 


Priscillian, Liber ad Damasum Episcopum. Text. Ed. by 
G. Schepss, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latino- 
rum, XVIII, 34-43. 


Although the catholic faith, that possesses the way of a 
creed given by God, aims rather at the glory of belief than 


397 This Bassus was city prefect in 382. 

398 The text of this petition is followed by an imperial order to one Cynegus, 
that the petitioners, who are evidently catholic, should be permitted to worship 
in peace. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vol. XXXV, pp. 45-46. 


692 THE SEE OF PETER 


of speech, because things that rely upon their own truth 
require no skill in interpretation, as the apostle says: “ Avoid 
contentions of the law,” *’’ nevertheless we are overborne 
by the necessity which the injustice of Bishop Hydatius 
has imposed upon us, even though we have always followed 
the course of patience and have endeavored to endure rather 
than resort to action. And we are glad that the situation has 
reached the point where we must state our belief to you, 
who are the senior of us all and who after acquiring experi- 
ence of life have arrived, by aid of blessed Peter, to the 
glory of the Apostolic See, and that we must fulfil before you 
the faithful words of the apostle, who says: ‘‘ With the heart 
we believe to justification and with the mouth confession is 
made unto salvation.” *° ... [A description of the au- 
thor’s whole life as peaceloving, quiet and faithful. | 

Then, in the episcopal council which was held at Sara- 
gossa, not one of our number was held guilty, not one was 
accused, not one condemned, no charge of wrong thought 
or life was brought against us, no one, I will not say felt 
bound, but even cared to produce any complaint. Some 
admonition was given there by Hydatius, as if he were 
instituting a rule for the conduct of life. No one of us 
was reprimanded by that, for your letter against evildoers 
had great authority with us, in which you had bidden us 
by the gospel precepts to pass no sentence on men in their 
absence and without a hearing. . . . [Statement of creed, 
followed by an account of the trouble created through and 
over Hydatius. | 

But we, who do not fail in a matter of faith to prefer 
the ugenens of saints to that of the world,’ have come 
to Rome with resentment against no man but asking this one 
thing, that we might come to you first, so that our silence 

899 Titus, III, 9. | 

400 JI Corinthians, IV, 13. 


401 Hydatius had shortly before this appealed to the emperor Gratian for 
support in his conflict with the Priscillianists. Supra, p. 609. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 693 


might not be interpreted as fears of conscience, and that we 
might present a statement setting forth what has occurred 
and, more important than all else, the catholic faith in which 
We lve... :.. 

Therefore, we entreat your reverence, if the faith which 
we profess is clear before God and in harmony with that 
which you transmit as a bequest to you from the apostles, 
if the testimonies of our churches, written in letters of peace, 
are in your possession, if we neither can nor should believe 
differently regarding the Scriptures, if no one, not even as 
a layman,*’” has been condemned on the proof of any charge 
brought against him, — although the priesthood is no cover 
for crime and a priest may be deposed who, as a layman, 
already deserves condemnation, — we implore you to give us 
audience, — because you are senior and first over all, — and 
to summon Hydatius to confront us. And if he believes 
he can prove something against us, he will not lose the crown 
of eternal priesthood, if he pursues the zeal of the Lord to 
the end.** Or if in your innate benevolence you wish to 
threaten no one with the injustice which he has inflicted 
upon us, we beg you to send letters to your brothers, the 
bishops of Spain. For we all ask, in order to prevent any 
injustice, that a council should be convened and Hydatius 
summoned, so as to decide upon the guilty to their faces 
and try no one unheard. . . ._ [We desire no harm to any- 
one and are willing to forgive Hydatius. We ask only an 
investigation. | 

402 J.e.,no member of the clergy has been convicted of any offense for which a 


layman would be punished by the civil law. 
403 T Esdras, IX, 7. 


694 THE SEE OF PETER 


Damasus, Epistolae, VIII. Text. C. T. G. Schoenemann, 
Pontificum Romanorum Epistolae Genuinae, 402. 


Bishop Damasus to his most beloved son, Jerome, greet- 
ing in the Lord.“ 

I have been reading the commentaries in Greek and 
Latin on the interpretation of the gospels, which have been 
written both in the past and recently by our own, that is, 
orthodox scholars, and find that they offer not only different 
but actually contrary explanations of the phrase: “* Osanna 
to the Son of David!” It is your duty, beloved, to clear 
away conjectures and expose ambiguities with your ardent 
and strenuous intelligence and write us the genuine mean- 
ing, — what it is in Hebrew, — so that for this as for many 
other services we may give you earnest thanks in Christ 
Jesus. 


Damasus, Epistolae, IX. Text. Of. cit., 403-404. 
Damasus to his most beloved son, Jerome. 


You are drowsy and have been reading for a long time 
now rather than writing, so I have decided to send you some 
small questions to arouse you, — not because you ought not 
to read, for reading is the daily food on which speech lives 
and waxes fat, but because the fruit of your reading is your 
writing. Yesterday, when you sent my messenger back, you 
said you had no letters ready but those which you composed 
some time ago in your hermitage “°® and which I have read 
and pondered with utmost attention. But you sent word 
besides that you might write letters by working secretly at 

404 This and the following letter were written during the years 383-384, after 
Jerome’s return to Rome in the train of Paulinus to attend the Synod of 382. The 
answers are found in Jerome’s Epistolae, XX and XXXVI. 


405 J.e,, during his stay in the Syrian desert. Jerome had sent Damasus from 
Constantinople his treatise on the Seraphim. 


THE RISE OF THE SEE 695 


night, if I wished. I gladly accept your offer of what I had 
determined to request, even if you refused it. Nor do I 
think that any kind of conversation or discussion would be 
more fitting for us than talk about the Scriptures, that is, 
that I should ask questions and you should answer. No other 
life, in my opinion, would be happier under the sun; such 
food of the soul is sweeter than all honey. ‘“ How sweet,” 
says the prophet, “are thy words unto my taste! sweeter 
than honey to my mouth! ” *°° For since, as our chief orator 
says, we men differ from beasts in that we can speak,*”’ 
how praiseworthy is he who outdoes other men in that gift 
by which mankind excels the beasts! 

So gird up your loins and resolve for me the problems 
I here set you, observing moderation in both directions, that 
my questions may not lack solutions nor your letters brevity. 
I must admit to you that I do not enjoy the books of 
Lactantius which you gave me a while ago, because many 
of his letters run on to a thousand lines and they seldom 
deal with our doctrine. In consequence, their length begets 
weariness in the reader. Those that are short are of more 
interest to schoolmen than to us, for they treat of metres 
and the situation of countries and philosophers.*” 

1 What means the line in Genesis: “‘ Whosoever slayeth 
Cain, shall suffer vengeance sevenfold? ” *”° 

2 If God made everything very good, why did he lay on 
Noah the command for the clean and the unclean beasts,**° 
when nothing good can be unclean? And in the New Testa- 
ment, after the vision had been shown to Peter and he said: 
“ Far be it from me, Lord; for nothing common or unclean 
has ever entered into my mouth,” the voice from heaven 
answered: “‘ What God hath cleansed, that call not thou 
common.” *”* 


406 Psalms, CXVIII (King James’ Version, CXIX), 103. 

407 Cicero, De Oratore, I, 8. 

408 For Damasus’ opinion of philosophy, vide supra, p. 678. 

409 Genesis, IV, 15. 410 Genesis, VII, 2. 411 Acts, X, 14, 15. 


696 THE SEE OF PETER 


3 Why does God say to Abraham that in the fourth 
generation the children of Israel shall return out of Egypt * 
and Moses later write: “‘ Now in the fifth generation the 
children of Israel went out of the land of Egypt.” “* This, 
certainly, unless it may be explained, seems like a contra- 
diction. 

4 Why did Abraham receive circumcision as a sign of 
his faith? ** 

5 Why was Isaac, a just man, dear to God, deceived so 
that in error he blessed not the son he chose but the son he 
did not choose? *” 


412 Genesis, XV, 16. 414 Genesis, XVII, 10-14, 23-27. 
413 Exodus, XIII, 18. 415 Genesis, XX VII, 21-35. 


APPENDIX I 


THE DECRETAL OF SrIRICIUS TO HIMERIUS OF 
TARRAGONA 


Two months after the death of Damasus, on February 10, 385, 
his successor, Siricius, wrote a letter to Himerius, bishop of 
Tarragona in Spain, in reply to one which Himerius had sent to 
Damasus, reporting certain abuses and scandals in the churches 
of his province. This was not the first of the series of papal 
executive orders to go out in the form of letters, addressed to 
this or that bishop or group of bishops, prescribing regulations 
for the conduct of their flocks. Siricius himself refers to one 
issued by Liberius to expedite the general recovery from the 
effects of the Council of Rimini.’ But it is the earliest of these 
so-called decretals, epistolae decretales, which has come down to 
our time. 

For that reason it seems appropriate to append it to the docu- 
ments in this book, not because of the information it contains as 
to monasticism and the clerical orders in the fourth century, but 
because it illustrates, perhaps, the type of letter that Liberius 
may have written and in certain of its phrases foreshadows the 
development of papal executive and legislative power in the stage 
next beyond that to which we have traced it. Whether this 
development had in point of fact been anticipated by Liberius 
or Damasus we cannot be sure. We see only that Siricius, in 
taking up, as he says, the responsibilities of Damasus, assumes 
the right to make ordinances for the metropolitans and clergy 
of the West and classes the statutes of the Apostolic See and the 
venerable canons of the councils together as laws of which no 
priest of the Lord may be ignorant. He is writing, one must 
note, for western churches only, as far as his explicit directions 

1 Supra, p. 551. Both Liberius and Damasus had sent instructions to indi- 
vidual communities in the East as well as in the West. 

697 


698 THE SEE OF PETER 


go,” but his West includes Spaniards and Gauls and Carthaginians 
in provinces far beyond Italy. 

The decretal itself is more than the instructions of a senior 
bishop to his junior colleagues on ways to remedy evils in con- 
gregations under their authority. In several of its provisions it 
goes behind the local bishop and metropolitan altogether and 
establishes relations by its own authority directly with the lesser 
clergy, monks and laity of these distant regions. ‘The local 
bishop is for the moment merely the organ of communication be- 
tween the chief shepherd and the sheep. All priests are to keep 
the rules or be “ plucked from the solid, apostolic rock upon 
which Christ built the universal Church.” Offenders are “ de- 
posed by authority of the Apostolic See from every ecclesiasti- 
cal position which they have abused.” 

The source of Siricius’ authority is Peter, although he likes, 
whenever possible, to find further support for it in Paul. But 
it is Peter, mystically present in his heirs, the bishops of Rome, 
who protects and watches over them in their care of his ministry. 
In a later letter, to the bishops of Africa, Siricius mentions a 
gathering of prelates held in the Vatican, “ by the relics of the 
holy apostle Peter, through whom both the apostolate and the 
episcopate had their beginning in Christ.”* All bishops then 
have a share in Peter’s powers. In another letter, to the bishop 
of Thessalonica, he declines to interfere in a case which could 
be competently handled by the local, episcopal tribunal.* But 
to a unique extent the spirit of Peter is in that see which be- 
yond all others is “ apostolic,” to which “ belong the daily super- 
vision and unceasing care of all the churches.” When other 
authorities weaken or fail it is there as the church’s rock 
foundation. 

2 One of Siricius’ later letters is addressed ‘‘to the orthodox in divers prov- 
inces.” LEpistolae, VI. 


3 Epistolae, V. 
* Epistolae, IX. 


APPENDIX 699 


Siricius, Epistolae, I. Text. C.T. G. Schoenemann, Ponti- 
ficum Romanorum Epistolae Genuinae, 408-416. 


Siricius to Himerius, bishop of Tarragona. 


1 The report, my brother, which you sent to our pred- 
ecessor, Damasus of holy memory, found me already in- 
stalled in his seat, for so the Lord has ordained. On reading 
it carefully in the assembly of the brethren, we discovered 
as many points in it that deserved rebuke and correction as 
we hoped to find worthy of praise. And since we must as- 
sume the labors and responsibilities of him whose honor 
we have assumed, by God’s grace, now that the requisite no- 
tice has first been given of our elevation, we will not deny 
you a full reply to each detail of your inquiry, as the Lord 
deigns to inspire us. For in view of our office we have no 
right to dissemble and none to keep silence, since it is our 
duty more than anyone’s to be zealous for the Christian 
faith... We bear the burdens of all who are heavy laden; 
nay, rather, the blessed apostle Peter bears them in us and 
protects and watches over us, his heirs, as we trust, in all the 
care of his ministry. 

2 Now, on your front page you wrote that many who 
had been baptized by the impious Arians were eager to join 
the catholic faith and that some of our brothers proposed to 
baptize them a second time. This is not permissible, for the 
apostle forbids the practice,° the canons prohibit it ‘ and the 
decrees that were sent out to the provinces by Liberius, my 
predecessor of venerable memory, after the nullification of 
the Council of Rimini condemn it. Such persons, along with 
the Novatians and other heretics, we receive into the con- 

5 In a later letter “to the orthodox in divers provinces,” Siricius says: ‘“ And 
I, upon whom rests the care of all the churches, if I dissemble, shall hear the Lord 
saying:” etc. Epistolae, VI. 


6 Ephesians, IV, 5. 
7 For the canon of Arles, vide supra, p. 482. 


700 THE SEE OF PETER 


gregation of Catholics, as it was prescribed in the synod, 
by simply the invocation of the sevenfold Spirit, with the 
imposition of the bishop’s hand. All the East and the West 
keep this custom. You too henceforth ought not to deviate 
from this path, if you do not wish to be cut off from our 
college by sentence of our synod. 

3 Next, you mention the reprehensible confusion, de- 
manding correction, that exists among your candidates, 
who are baptized just as each one pleases. Our fellow 
priests, — we say this with indignation, — are presuming 
to act in this way not on the ground of any authority but 
solely out of carelessness. Uncounted multitudes, you state, 
everywhere and freely, at the season of Christ’s Nativity 
and Epiphany and also on the festivals of the apostles and 
martyrs, receive the mystery of baptism, although both 
with us and with all the churches this privilege is confined 
particularly to the Lord’s days of Easter and of Pentecost. 
On these days only, throughout the year, should the sacra- 
ment of baptism in general be administered to persons com- 
ing into the faith and only those should be selected who 
have presented their names forty days or more before- 
hand and have purified themselves by exorcisms and daily 
prayers and fastings, so that the precept of the apostle may 
be fulfilled, that the old leaven be purged out and then the 
new lump begun.* Yet although we say that the reverence 
due to holy Easter should be nowise diminished, we also 
desire that babes who for their youth are not yet able to 
speak and persons in any extremity who need the sacred 
wave of baptism should be succored with all speed, lest 
we risk the destruction of our own souls by denying the 
font of salvation to those who seek it and someone may 
depart from this world and lose the kingdom and life. If 
then any persons are involved in the peril of shipwreck, the 
raid of an enemy, the dangers of a siege or any desperate 

8 I Corinthians, V, 7. 


APPENDIX 701 


state of bodily illness and ask for solace by the one aid of 
faith, let them receive the reward of regeneration for which 
they beg at the very moment they wish it. Let your er- 
rors hitherto in this respect be sufficient! Now let all your 
priests observe the rule here given, unless they wish to be 
plucked from the solid, apostolic rock upon which Christ 
built the universal Church. 

4 You add also that some Christians have strayed into 
apostasy, — the mention of which is sin, — and have pol- 
luted themselves by the worship of idols and the contamina- 
tion of sacrifices. We command you to cut them off from 
the body and blood of Christ, by which they were once re- 
deemed in the new birth. If ever by chance they repent 
and turn to mourning, they shall do penance ® as long as 
they live and at their last end obtain the grace of reconcilia- 
tion, for, as the Lord teaches us, we desire not the death of 
the sinner but that he should be converted and live.” 

5 As regards the marriage ceremony, you inquire if a 
man may take in wedlock a girl betrothed to another. We 
forbid this absolutely, for the blessing which the priest be- 
stows upon her before her marriage is like a sacrilege among 
_ the faithful, if it is marred by any such dishonor. 

6 You also thought proper, beloved, to consult the 
Apostolic See over those persons who, after doing penance, 
have returned like dogs and swine to their former vomit and 
wallow and have hungered again for the soldier’s belt, 
the pleasures of the games, new marriages and forbidden 
adulteries, whose admitted incontinence is betrayed by the 
children begotten after their absolution. For such persons, 
who no longer possess the remedy of penance, we have 
thought best to decree that they may join in church with 
the faithful in prayer only, but that they may be present 
at the holy celebration of the mysteries, even though they 
are not worthy. They shall, however, be excluded from 

9 Agenda poenitentia est. 10 Ezechiel, XVIII, 23. 


702 THE SEE OF PETER 


the feast of the Lord’s table, so that while suffering at least 
from this restriction, they may chasten themselves for their 
sins and furnish an example to others to deter them from 
wanton desires. Yet, inasmuch as they fell through frailty 
of the flesh, we bid you succor them with the gift of the 
viaticum, through the grace of communion, when they start 
on their way to the Lord. We think you should follow this 
rule with women also, who after penance have yielded to 
similar pollution. 

7 Furthermore, you state that there are monks and nuns 
who have cast aside their resolution to be holy and are sunk 
so deep in licentiousness that after first meeting stealthily 
under cover of the monasteries in illicit and sacrilegious pas- 
sion, they have then on a sudden through despair of con- 
science begotten children freely in these illicit relations, a 
thing condemned both by civil law and by the rules of the 
Church. We direct you to expel these shameless and abomi- 
nable persons from the company of the monasteries and 
the congregations of the churches, that they may be thrown 
into the jails and mourn their terrible crime with constant 
lamentation and burn with the purifying fire of repentance, 
so that mercy may help them, at least in death, out of pure 
compassion, with the grace of communion. 

8 Let us now proceed to the most holy orders of the 
clergy, who, we learn upon your information, beloved, are 
SO oppressed and demoralized throughout your provinces, 
to the injury of our venerable religion, that in the words of 
Jeremiah we might say: ‘‘ Who will give water to my head 
or a fountain of tears to my eyes? And I will weep day 
and night for this people.” ** If the blessed prophet says 
that his tears cannot suffice to bewail the sins of the peo- 
ple, how great must be the grief that smites us when we are 
forced to deplore the crimes of those who are a part of our 
body, especially since, as blessed Paul says, to us belong the 


11 Jeremias, IX, 1. 


APPENDIX 703 


daily supervision and unceasing care of all the churches! 
“For who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended 
and I do not burn? ”*’ For we are told that many priests 
and Levites of Christ, after long years of consecration, have 
begotten offspring from their wives as well as in disgraceful 
adultery and that they are defending their sin on the ground 
that we read in the Old Testament that priests and ministers 
were allowed the privilege of begetting children. 

9 Now let any man who is addicted to lust and incul- 
cates vice explain to me why, if he thinks that in the law 
of Moses the Lord relaxed occasionally the reins on loose 
living for the priestly orders, the Lord also instructed those 
to whom he was committing the holy of holies, saying: ‘‘ Be 
ye holy, even as I, your Lord God, am holy.” ** Why were 
the priests bidden to take up their dwelling in the temple, 
far from their homes, during their year of service? Why but 
for the purpose that they might have no carnal intercourse 
even with their wives but in the radiance of an upright 
conscience offer an acceptable gift unto God? When their 
time of service was fulfilled, they were permitted associa- 
tion with their wives but solely for the sake of progeny, be- 
cause it had been commanded that no man from any tribe 
but that of Levi should be allowed in the ministry of God. 

10 Now the Lord Jesus, when he illumined us by his 
appearing, declared in the gospel that he was come to ful- 
fil the law, not to destroy it.* And so he desired that the 
Church, whose bridgegroom he is, should have her visage 
shining with the splendor of chastity, that in the day of 
judgment, when he comes again, he might find her without 
spot or blemish, as he ordained by his apostle.” Hence all 
we priests and Levites are bound by the unbreakable law 
of those instructions to subdue our hearts and bodies to 
soberness and modesty from the day of our ordination, that 


12 TI Corinthians, XI, 29. 14 Matthew, V, 17. 
13 Leviticus, XX, 7. 15 Ephesians, V, 27. 


704 THE SEE OF PETER 


we may be wholly pleasing to our God in the sacrifices which 
we daily offer. ‘‘ They that are in the flesh,” says the ves- 
sel of election, “‘ cannot please God. But ye are now not in 
the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you.” ** And where but in holy bodies, as we 
read, can the Spirit of God have a dwelling-place? 

11 Inasmuch as some of the men of whom we speak 
protest sorrowfully, as your holiness reports, that they fell in 
ignorance, we direct you not to refuse them mercy, on 
condition that they remain as long as they live, without 
any advancement in honor, in the office in which their guilt 
was detected, provided, however, that they undertake to 
live in continence hereafter. As for those who unwarrant- 
ably rely upon the excuse of the privilege which they main- 
tain was granted them by the old law, let them understand 
that they are deposed by authority of the Apostolic See from 
every ecclesiastical position which they have abused and 
that never again may they handle the venerable mysteries, 
of which they deprived themselves by clinging to their ob- 
scene passions. And inasmuch as present warnings teach 
us to be on our guard in the future, if any bishop, priest or 
deacon is hereafter discovered in such crime, as we trust 
there will not be, let him now and at once understand that 
every way to leniency through us is barred, for wounds that 
do not heal by fomentation must be cut out by the knife. 

12 We learn, furthermore, that men of untrammelled 
and unknown lives, who have had many wives, are aspiring 
to the aforesaid offices in the Church, just as they fancy 
For this we do not blame so much those who obtain these 
positions through immoderate ambition as the metropolitan 
bishops in particular, who connive at unlawful aims and 
despise the commandments of our God, as far as in them is. 
We pass in silence over our deeper suspicions but where is 
that ordinance of our God, established when he gave the 

16 Romans, VIII, 8-0. 


APPENDIX 705 


law through Moses, saying: “‘ My priests shall marry but 
once’? And in another place: “ A priest shall take a virgin 
to wife, not a widow, nor one that was put away, nor a har- 
lot.” Following this, the apostle who changed from per- 
secutor to preacher charged both the priest and the deacon 
that they should be the husbands of one wife.** But all 
these precepts are scorned by the bishops of your dis- 
tricts, as if they rather meant the opposite. Now we must 
not overlook transgressions of this kind, lest we be smitten 
by the just voice of the indignant Lord, saying: ‘‘ Thou saw- 
est the thief and wentest with him and wast a partaker with 
adulterers.” **° Therefore we here by general announcement 
decree. what must henceforth be observed by all the churches 
and what must be avoided. 

13 Whoever then vows himself to the service of the 
Church from his infancy should be baptized before the years 
of puberty and given a share in the ministry of the readers. 
If he lives honorably from the period of adolescence to 
his thirtieth year and is content with one wife, one whom 
he receives as a virgin through the priest with the gen- 
eral benediction, he should be made an acolyte and a 
subdeacon. If thereafter he maintains the level of his pre- 
vious continence, he should receive the rank of deacon. If 
then he performs his ministry commendably for more than 
five years, he should appropriately be granted the priesthood. 
Finally, after ten more years, he may rise to the episcopal 
chair, if through all this time he is approved for uprightness 
of life and faith. 

14 He who is already of adult years when his change to 
a better mind prompts him to leave the laity for the sacred 
army, shall attain the fruit of his desire only upon condition 
that immediately after his baptism he join the band of read- 
ers or exorcists, provided also that he be known to have had 

17 Leviticus, X XI, 13-14; Ezechiel, XLIV, 22. 


18 [ Timothy, ITI, 2. 
19 Psalms, XLIX, 18 (King James’ Version, L, 18). 


706 THE SEE OF PETER 


or to have but one wife and to have taken her as a virgin. 
When such a man has been initiated and has served for 
two years, he shall for the next five years be acolyte and 
subdeacon and thus be promoted to the diaconate, if dur- 
ing this period he is judged worthy. Then, in the course 
of time, he may for his deserts win the priesthood and the 
bishopric, if the choice of the clergy and the people lights 
upon him. _ : 

15 If any member of the clergy marries a widow or else 
a second wife, he shall at once be stripped of every privilege 
of ecclesiastical rank and admitted to lay communion only. 
This he may still receive on condition that he commit no 
offense later for which he should lose it. 

16 We do not allow women to be in the houses of 
clergy, save only those whom the Council of Nicaea per- 
mitted to dwell with them for bare purposes of necessity. 

17 We expect and desire that monks of high reputa- 
tion for the soberness of their characters and the holy man- 
ner of their lives and faith should join the ranks of the 
clergy. Those under thirty years of age should be promoted 
through the lower orders, step by step, as time passes, and 
thus reach the distinction of the diaconate or the priesthood 
with the consecration of their maturer years. They should 
not at one bound rise to the height of the episcopate until 
they have served out the terms which we have just pre- 
scribed for each office. 2 

18 It is right also that we should rule that even as no 
member of the clergy is admitted to penance, so too no lay- 
man after penance and reconciliation may obtain the honor 
of clerical office. For although such men have been cleansed 
from the stain of all their sins, yet they ought not to take 
up the implements for administering the sacraments, after 
having once themselves been the vessels of vice. 

19 And forasmuch as the one excuse of ignorance is 
offered for all these offenses which have come to us for re- 


APPENDIX 707 


buke and we on our part must in clemency forgive that out 
of sheer piety, every penitent, every twice-married, every 
husband of a widow, who has undeservedly and wrongfully 
forced his way into the sacred army, shall understand that 
we grant him pardon on this condition, that he reckon it a 
great boon to lose all hope of promotion but to remain in 
perpetual security in the rank in which he now is. But the 
chief bishops of all the provinces shall know henceforth that 
if they undertake again to raise any such person to the 
sacred ranks, a fitting sentence will needs be pronounced 
both on them and on those whom they promote contrary to 
the canons and to our prohibition. 

20 We have, I think, dearest brother, disposed of all 
the questions which were contained in your letter of inquiry 
and have, I believe, returned adequate answers to each of 
the cases which you reported by our son, the priest Bas- 
sianus, to the Roman church as to the head of your body. 
Now we do once and again urge you, brother, to bend your 
mind to observing the canons and keeping the decretals that 
have been ordained. Do you bring these decisions we are 
sending you to the knowledge of all our fellow bishops and 
not only of those who are stationed within your diocese. 
Send our salutary instructions to all the Carthaginians and 
Baeticians,”° Lusitanians “ and Gallicians also and to those 
who live in the provinces bordering yours on either side, with 
an accompanying letter from you. And whereas no priest of 
the Lord is free to be ignorant of the statutes of the Apos- 
tolic See and the venerable provisions of the canons, it may 
be even more expedient and a very glorious distinction for 
you, beloved, and for your ancient bishopric, if the general 
letter which I have written to you individually is brought 
to the attention of all our brothers through your earnest 


20 Baetica was a province of southern Spain, including the present Andalusia 


and a part of Granada. 
21 Lusitania was western Spain, including the modern Portugal and parts of 


the Spanish provinces of Estremadura and Toledo. 


708 THE SEE OF PETER 


diligence. In this way the salutary ordinances we have 
made, not inadvisedly but prudently, with utmost care and 
deliberation, may continue unviolated and all opportunity 
for excuses, which we can no longer admit from anyone, 
may be closed in the future. 

Dated the eleventh of February, in the consulship of 
Arcadius and Bauto.” 

22 A.D. 385. 


APPENDIX II 


THE LIBERIAN CATALOGUE 


It seems advisable to insert in a Second Appendix the list of 
Roman bishops from Peter to Liberius contained in the Com- 
pendium of 354,’ thereby completing as far as possible our collec- 
tion of all the important documentary material bearing on the 
rise of the See through the age of Damasus. This list, commonly 
known as the Liberian Catalogue from the name of the bishop 
under whom it was produced, is of little or no value as a rec- 
ord until it reaches the third century. The names of the first 
bishops are unquestionably derived from earlier, second century 
lists, such as those of Irenaeus and Hegesippus. One of these 
lists gave the name of the predecessor of Clement as Anacletus, 
another as Cletus. The compiler who drew upon them, seeing 
the two forms, mistook them for the names of two men and thus 
inserted an extra bishop. He also moved them both to places 
after Clement, with the idea apparently of bringing Clement 
nearer to Peter to accord better with the Clementine legend.’ 
In the third century, the construction of chronological tables to 
include the terms of Roman bishops together with the consular 
Fasti and the reigns of emperors seems definitely to have begun. 
It was possible at that time to ascertain the years of most of the 
bishops of that century. But one of these chronographers, un- 
willing to have his pontifical list precise only toward the end, 
went back and added years and dates for all the previous epis- 
copates, of which the names solely had survived. The confu- 
sion obvious in our text in the dates given for the pontificates of 
the period of persecution in the middle of this century is prob- 
ably due, in part, at least, to the blunders of a later copyist, who 
entered under one name the date that belonged under another. 
For the latter part of the third century and the opening of the 


1 Supra, pp. 104-105. 
2 Supra, pp. 85, n. 63, 189, 164. Vide Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Pt. 2, Vol. 
I, pp. 261 ff.; Kidd, History of the Church to A.D. 461, Vol. I, pp. 125 ff. 


799 


710° THE SEE OF PETER 


fourth these figures are the most trustworthy that we have.® 
The whole catalogue went through more than one process of re- 
editing at the hands of its continuators before its final emergence 
as we have it, during one of which processes the months and 
days were suffixed to the years of the bishops from first to last. 
It was probably not much before 354 that Peter himself was given 
the title of bishop and set definitely in the position of head of the 
episcopal line.** 


Text. Ed. by Th. Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae 
Historica, Auctores Antiquissimt, IX, Chronica Minora, 


173600: 


In the reign of Tiberius Caesar, our Lord Jesus Christ 
suffered under the constellation of the Gemini; March 25, 
and after his ascension the blessed Peter undertook the 
episcopate. From his time, in due order of succession, we 
give everyone who has been bishop, how many years he was 
in office and under what emperor. 

Peter, 25 years, 1 month, 9 days, was bishop in the time 
of Tiberius Caesar and of Gaius and of Tiberius Claudius 
and of Nero, from the consulship of Minucius and Longinus 
(A.D. 30) to that of Nero and Verus (55). He suffered 
together with Paul, June 29, under the aforesaid consuls, in 
the reign of Nero. 

Linus, 12 years, 4 months, 12 days, was bishop in the 
time of Nero, from the consulship of Saturninus and Scipio 
(56) to that of Capito and Rufus (67). 

Clement, 9 years, 11 months, 12 days, was bishop in the 
time of Galba and of Vespasian, from the consulship of 
Tracalus and Italicus (68) to the sixth of Vespasian and 
first of Titus (76). 

3 On this obscure period, vide supra, p. 442. 


8a On the significance of this vide supra, pp. 65-66. 
4 On the twenty-five year episcopate of Peter vide supra, p. 105. 


APPENDIX 711 


_ Cletus,” 6 years, 2 months, 10 days, was bishop in the 
time of Titus and at the commencement of Domitian, from 
the eighth consulship of Vespasian and fifth of Domitian 
(77) to the ninth of Domitian and first of Rufus (83). 

Anaclitus,* 12 years, 10 months, 3 days, was bishop in 
the time of Domitian, from the tenth consulship of Domitian 
and first of Sabinus (84) to the seventeenth of Domitian 
and first of Clement (95). 

Aristus,’ 13 years, 7 months, 2 days, was bishop at the 
end of Domitian and in the time of Nerva and of Trajan, 
from the consulship of Valens and Verus (96) to that of 
Gallus and Bradua (108). 

Alexander, 7 years, 2 months, 1 day, was bishop in the 
time of Trajan, from the consulship of Palma and Tullius 
(109) to that of Velianus and Vetus (116). 

Sixtus, Io years, 3 months, 21 days, was bishop in the 
time of Adrian, from the consulship of Niger and Apronianus 
(117) to the third of Verus and first of Ambibulus 
(126). 

Telesforus, 11 years, 3 months, 3 days, was bishop in the 
time of Antoninus Macrinus, from the consulship of Titianus 
and Gallicanus (127) to that of Caesar and Balbinus (137). 

Higinus, 12 years, 3 months, 6 days, was bishop in the 
time of Verus . . . from the consulship of Gallicanus and 
Vetus (150) to that of Presens and Rufinus (153). 

Pius, 20 years, 4 months, 21 days, was bishop in the time 
of Antoninus Pius, from the consulship of Clarus and Severus 
(146) to that of the two Augusti (161). While he was 
bishop, his brother Ermes wrote a book,° in which is con- 
tained the message that an angel gave him, when he came 
to him in the guise of a shepherd.” 


5 In the oldest lists Cletus succeeds Linus. Supra, pp. 249, 268. 

6 Another form of the name Cletus. Two bishops have been made out of 
one. Supra, p. 709. 

7 Or Evaristus. 

8 On Hermas and his book, The Shepherd, vide supra, p. 242. 

9 The name of Anicetus is lacking here. He should follow Pius. 


712 THE SEE OF PETER 


Soter, 9 years, . . .” 3 months, 2 days, was bishop in 
the time of Antoninus and of Commodus, from the consul- 
ship of Verus and Herenianus (171) to that of Paternus and 
Bradua (185). 

Victor, 9 years, 2 months, 1o days, was bishop in the 
time . . .. of Antoninus, from the consulship of Saturninus 
and Gallus (198) to that of Presens and Extricatus (217). 

Calixtus, 5 years, 2 months, 10 days, was bishop in the 
time of Macrinus and of Eliogabalus, from the consulship 
of Antoninus and Adventus (218) to the third of Antoninus 
and first of Alexander (222). 

Urbanus, 8 years, 11 months, 12 days, was bishop in the 
time of Alexander, from the consulship of Maximus and 
Elianus (223) to that of Agricola and Clementinus (230). 

Pontianus, 5 years, 2 months, 7 days, was bishop in the 
time of Alexander, from the consulship of Pompeianus and 
Pelignianus (231). At that time, the bishop Pontianus and 
the priest Ypollitus were transported into exile to Sardinia, 
to the island Vocina, in the consulship of Severus and Quin- 
tianus (235), and in the same island he died, September 
28,°* and in his place Antheros was ordained, November 21, 
in the aforesaid consulship (235). 

Antheros, one month, 10 days. He fell asleep, January 
3, in the consulship of Maximus and Africanus (236). 

Fabius, 14 years, 1 month, 10 days, was bishop in the 
time of Maximin and of Gordianus and of Philip, from the 
consulship of Maximin and Africanus (236) to the second 
of Decius and first of Gratus (250). He suffered, January 
21.” He divided the regions among the deacons and or- 
dered many buildings to be erected in the cemeteries. After 

10 Only the first three words in this paragraph belong to the notice of Soter’s 
episcopate. After the lacuna, it continues with the notice of Eleutherus, whose 
name is omitted. 

11 The latter part of Victor’s notice and the first of Zephyrinus’ have dis- 
appeared. 


11a On Hippolytus and Pontianus, vide supra, pp, 297, 299, 
11b On Fabianus, vide supra, p. 313. 


APPENDIX 713 


his passion, Moses and Maximus, the priests, and Nicostra- 
tus, the deacon, were seized and thrown into prison. At that 
time, Novatus arrived from Africa and drew away Novatian 
and certain confessors from the Church;” afterwards Moses 
died in prison, where he had continued rz months and 
11 days. 

Cornelius, 2 years, 3 months, 1o days, from the fourth 
consulship of Decius and second of Decius (251) to that of 
Gallus and Volusianus (252). While he was bishop, No- 
vatus ordained Novatian outside the church in the city 
of Rome and Nicostratus in Africa. Thereupon the con- 
fessors, who had withdrawn from Cornelius with Maximus 
the priest, who was with Moses, returned into the church. 
After this, they were banished to Centumcellae. In that 
place, he fell asleep with glory. 

Lucius, 3 years, 8 months, 10 days, was bishop in the 
time of Gallus and of Volusianus until the third consulship of 
Valerian and second of Gallienus (255). He was an exile 
and afterwards, by the will of God, he returned in safety 
to the church,” ... March 5, in the aforesaid consul- 
ship. 

Steffanus, 4 years, 2 months, 21 days, was bishop in the 
time of Valerian and Gallienus, from the consulship of 
Volusianus and Maximus (253) to the third of Valerian and 
second of Gallienus (255).°° 

Xystus, 2 years, 11 months, 6 days, began his bishopric 
in the consulship of Maximus and Glabrio (256) to that of 
Tuscus and Bassus (258) and he suffered August 6°"... 
from the consulship of Tuscus and Bassus (258) to July 21, 
in the consulship of Aemilianus and Bassus (259). 


12 This and the references in the next paragraph are to the Novatianist schism. 
Supra, pp. 340-341, 348 ff. 

12a On Lucius vide supra, p. 389. : 

13 A comparison of the consular dates given for Stephen with those given for 
Lucius, Xystus and Dionysius shows much confusion in reckoning. The text may 
be corrupt. 

13a Qn Xystus II and his martyrdom, vide supra, p. 420. 


714 THE SEE OF PETER 


Dionisius, 8 years, 2 months, 4 days, was bishop in the 
time of Gallienus, from July 22, in the consulship of Aemili- 
anus and Bassus (259), to December 26, in the consulship of 
Claudius and Paternus (269). 

Felix, 5 years, 11 months, 25 days, was bishop in the 
‘time of Claudius and of Aurelian, from the consulship of 
Claudius and Paternus (269) to the second consulship of 
Aurelian and first of Capitolinus (274). 

Eutycianus, 8 years, 11 months, 3 days, was bishop in 
the time of Aurelian, from the third consulship of Aurelian 
and first of Marcellinus (275) to December 7 in the second 
consulship of Carus and first of Carinus (283). 

Gaius, 12 years, 4 months, 7 days, was bishop in the 
time of Carus and Carinus, from December 17, in the second 
consulship of Carus and first of Carinus (283), to April 22, 
in the sixth of Diocletian and second of Constantius (296). 

Marcellinus,’* 8 years, 3 months, 25 days, was bishop in 
the time of Maxentius, from his tenth consulship and the first 
sixth consulship of Diocletian and second of Constantius 
(296), to the ninth consulship of Diocletian and eighth of 
Maximian (304). At that time, there was a persecution 
and the bishopric was empty 7 years, 6 months, and 25 days. 

Marcellus, one year, 6 months, 20 days, was bishop in 
the time of Maxentius, from his tenth consulship and the © 
first of Maximian until after the tenth consulship and seventh 
(309). 

Eusebius, 4 months, 16 days, from April 18 to August 17. 

Miltiades, 3 years, 6 months, 8 days, from July 2, in the 
eighth consulship of Maximian alone, that was in the month 
of September, in the consulship of Volusianus and Rufinus 
(311), to January 11, in that of Volusianus and Annianus 
(314). 

Silvester, 21 years, 11 months, was bishop in the time 
of Constantine, from the consulship of Volusianus and 

14 On the problem of Marcellinus and Marcellus, vide supra, pp. 443-445. 


APPENDIX 715 


Annianus (314), January 31, until January 1, in the consul- 
ship of Constantius and Albinus (335). 

Marcus, 8 months, 20 days, and he was bishop in the 
time of Constantine, in the consulship of Nepotianus and 
Facundus (336), from January 18 to October 7 in the afore- 
said consulship. 

Julius, 15 years, 1 month, 11 days, was bishop in the 
time of Constantine, from the consulship of Felicianus and 
Titianus (337), February 6, to April 12, in the fifth of Con- 
stantius and first of Constantius Caesar (352). He erected 
many buildings: the basilica on the Via Portuese, at the third 
milestone; the basilica on the Via Flaminia, which is called 
the basilica of Valentinus, at the second milestone; the 
basilica Julia, which is in the seventh region, near the forum 
of the divine Trajan; the basilica across the Tiber, in the 
fourteenth region, near (the basilica of) Callistus; the 
basilica on the Via Aurelia, at the third milestone, near 
(the cemetery of) Callistus.”” 

Liberius, . . . was bishop in the time of Constantius 
and Constantius, from May 22 to... , from the fifth 
consulship of Constantius and first of Constantius Caesar 
(352). 


15 On Julius vide supra, p. 488 and n. 98. 


Chronological List of Popes 


Peter 
Linus 
Cletus 
Clement I 
Anencletus 
Evaristus 
Alexander 
Xystus I 
Telesphorus 
Hyginus 
Pius I 
Anicetus 
Soter 
Eleutherus 
Victor 
Zephyrinus 
Callistus I 
Urbanus I 


Pontianus (230-235) 


Anteros (235-236) 


XXI. 
XXII. 
XXII. 
XXIV. 
XXV. 
XXVI. 

XXVII. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX., 
XXX. 
XXXI. 
XXXII. 
AXXITI. 
XXXIV. 
XXXV. 
XXXVI. 
XXXVI. 
XXXVITI. 
AXXIX. 
XL. 


THE POPES OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES 


Fabianus (236-250) 
Cornelius (251-253) 
Lucius (253-254) 
Stephen I (254-257) 
Xystus II (257-258) 
Dionysius (259-268) 
Felix I (269-274) 
Eutychianus (275-283) 
Gaius (283-2096) 
Marcellinus (296-304) 
Marcellus (308-309) 
Eusebius (309 or 310) 
Miltiades (311-314) 
Silvester (314-335) 
Marcus (336) 

Julius I (337-352) 


_Liberius (352-366) 


Felix II (355-358) 
Damasus (366-384) 
Siricius (384-399) 


INDEX 


Abercius, bishop of Hierapolis, 248. 
Achilleus, see Acta Nerei et Achillei. 
Acholius, bishop of Thessalonica, 608, 
619, 621, 623, 625, 677, 679, 687. 
Acta Nerei et Achillei, 198, 199, 204-205. 
Acta Petri et Pauli, 168, 179, 182, 184. 
Acta Xanthippis et Polyxenae, 155, 158. 
Acts, apocryphal, 120-122, 135, 108. 
Acts of the Apostles, book of, 6, 7, 10, 
‘24, 26, 48, 50-54, 56-59, 81, 93; 
SOL, 105; ‘124, 125, 131, 154, 166, 
170, 189-190, 192, 194, 281, 286, 
290, 292, 293, 302, 303, 384, 414, 
665, 671, 695; 
continuation of Gospel of Luke, 29, 


353 

“Acts of Peter ” and “ Acts of Paul,’ 
49; 

Simon Magus, 124, 128, 134. 

Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, see Acta 
Nerez et Achillei. 

Acts of Peter, see Peter. 

Acts of Peter and Paul, see Acta Petri 
et Pauli. 

Acts of Peter with Simon, see Actus 
Petri cum Simone. 

Actus Petri cum Simone (Codex Vercel- 

lensis; Actus Vercellenses), 135, 
136. 

Actus Vercellenses, see Actus Petri cum 
Simone. 

Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena, see 
Acta Xanthippis et Polyxenae. 

Adoptionists, 274, 275, 278, 270, 200, 
430-432, 434, 438-440, 471. 

Aelia, Roman, 220, 420, 486. 

Aeons, 263. 

African churches, 450; excommuni- 
cated, 397; baptism, 466; see also 
Tertullian; Rogatianus; Cyprian; 
Stephen; Caecilian; Donatists; 
Carthage. 

Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, 467, 
468, 471, 475, 509, 562. 

Alexander, bishop of Rome, 249, 260, 
711, 716. 


77 


Alexandria, See of, 166, 216, 230, 474, 

493; 

apostolic foundation, 65, 80, 116, 166, 
220; 

relations with Rome, 89, 224, 285, 

position under Council of Nicaea, 
485-486 ; 

Council of Nicaea, letter to Alexan- 
dria, 486; 

Nicene Creed, 432; 

Julius’ letter to Alexandria, 530; 


see also Alexander; Athanasius; 
Clement; Dionysius; Cyril; De- 
metrius; Heraclas; Maximus; 


Origen; Peter; Pistus; Timothy. 
Alexandria, synods at, 23r A.D., 89; 
362 A.D., 550, 659. 
Alogi, the, 37. 
Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 122, 182- 
185, 212, 218, 541, 596, 602, 606— 
609, 618, 625, 660; 
doctrine of the Trinity, 183; 
Sermo contra Auxentium: De Basilicis 
Tradendis, 191; 
In Hexaemeron, 184, 191; 
De Paenitentia, 606; 
Epistolae, 605, 607, 608, 625, 634. 
Ammianus Marcellinus, pagan _histo- 
rian: Res Gestae, 212, 450, 502, 
550, 568, 600, 610, 632, 648. 
Anacletus, bishop of Rome, see Cletus. 
Anastasius, bishop of Rome, 80. 
Anastasius, papal librarian: Vita Pauli 
Papae I, 200, 206-207. 
Ancyra, synod at, 655; see also Basil; 
Marcellus. 
Andrew, apostle, 13, 21, 35; at Scythia, 
90; apocryphal Acts, 120, 121 
Anencletus, bishop of Rome, see Cletus. 
Anicetus, bishop of Rome, 221, 245-251, 
256, 261, 262, 2609, 272, 283, 284, 
711, 716. 
Anomoeans, the, 546, 547, 550, 587. 
Anteros (Antheros), bishop of Rome, 
313, 315, 712, 7106. 


718 INDEX 


Antichrist, Nero Redivivus, 69. 
Antioch, See of, 29, 80, 191, 226, 2209, 
230, 232, 239, 240, 331, 399, 420, 
432, 550, 622, 623; 
apostolic foundation, 65; Peter, 10, 
55, 56, 100, 102, III, II5, 116, 
167, 220; and Paul, 54; Barna- 
bas, 166; 
membership, 353; 
position under Council of Nicaea, 474, 
4855 
relations with Rome, 215, 224, 227, 
229, 434, 439-441, 619; 
see also Demetrianus; Domnus; Euse- 
bius; Evagrius; Evodius; Fabius; 
Flavian; George of Cappadocia; 
Ignatius; Meletius; Paulinus; 
Serapion; Stephen; Theophilus. 
Antioch, synods at, 542; 253 A.D., 355, 
387, 398; 268 or 269 A.D., 433; 
3390 A.D. “506;°622:" 341 AD, 
494, 543; 379 A.D., 619, 688. 
Antoninus Pius, emperor, 243, 258. 
Anulinus, 451, 455-457, 459; letter to 
Constantine, 456. 
Apocalypses, apocryphal, 122. 
Apocryphal writings, 39, 102, 114, 120; 
use forbidden, 123. 
Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea, 611, 
616-618, 648, 656, 659, 673, 674, 
676; 
Apollinarianism, 616, 623, 648, 673. 
Apostle, the “sent,” 290. 
Apostles: 
the Twelve, 10, 11, 21, 30, 41, 56, 94, 
289, 321, 329; see also the 
Seventy ; 
question of precedence, 13, 25, 34; 
judging the twelve tribes, 26, 28, 34 
35, 662; 
Christ’s final charge, 10, 11, 17, 22, 
26-28, 32, 50, 136, 237, 286, 290, 
291, 406; 
after the resurrection, 35, 42, 327, 
406 ; 
oversight of the community, 48, 152; 
founders of churches, 84, 95-96, I01, 
263; see also Apostolic succession ; 
true teaching, 221, 248; see also Gos- 
pels, apocryphal. 
Apostles’ creed, 222, 271. 
Apostolic Constitutions, see Constitu- 
tiones Apostolorum. 
Apostolic Fathers, 73. 


Apostolic See, see Peter, founder of the 
Roman episcopate. 

Apostolic succession and tradition: in 
the Roman church, 25, 43, 61, 
65-67, 78; 85, 86, 99-102, I12, 
116, 159, 160, 162, 164, 203, 220, 
221, 235, 237-238, 245-274, 277; 
2903-294, 300, 415, 561, 579, 592, 
698, 699, 709-715; twofold tra- 
dition, 75-78, 83, 87, 126, 190, 
220, 222, 249, 263, 265, 267, 278, 
288 ; 

in other churches, 25, 38, 42, 49, 79, 
86, 102, 203, 220, 221, 235, 237— 
238, 248, 261-263, 269, 270, 287, 
291, 293, 204, 323, 407, 416, 515, 
698. 

Appian, De Bello Civili, 142. 

Aquileia, 218, 498, 644; see also Ru- 
finus; Valerian. 

Aquileia, Coaacl of, 38r A.D., 225, 556, 
602, 607, 625, 688. 

Archives, epiconal: 102; see also Paceas 
rea, library. 

Aristus, bishop of Rome, see Evaristus. 

Arius, 89, 186, 367-368, 463, 475, 487, 
488, 490, 495, 504, 533, 561, 592, 
594, 640, 641, 643, 655, 676; 

Arianism, 96, 132, 183, 185, 216, 225— 
227, 230, 419, 433-435, 407, 471, 
472, 474, 475, 477, 480-495, 500, 
501, 503, 505, 509-511, 515, 519, 
528, 533, 535 538, 542, 544, 546— 
554, 562-565, 569-571, 580, 501, 
592, 594, 604, 607, 611, 612, 616— 


619, 622, 623, 635, 654, 655, 657, 


659, 661, 669; see also Athana- 
sius; Hilary; 

Arian synod at Ancyra 358 A.D., 655; 
see also Council of Nicaea; Va- 
lens; Constantius. 

Arles, church at, 393; Constantius sum- 
mons meeting of Gallic clergy, 
535; see also Marcian. 

Arles, Council of, 314 A.D., 225, 230— 
231, 422, 465-466, 460, 473, 477- 
484, 520, 564; 

Synodical Letter to Silvester I, 480; 

Canons, 481-483. 

Arnobius, Adversus Gentes or Adversus 
Nationes, 154, 156. 

Artemon, Adoptionist, 215, 275, 278, 
279, 438. 

Ascensio Jesaiae (Martyrdom of Isaiah, 


INDEX 


Testament of Hezekiah, Vision of 


Isaiah) 4, 69-71, 144, 242. 


Ascension of Isaiah, see Ascensio Jesaiae. 


Asceticism, 81, 185, 219, 262, 572, 602, 
609 ; 
Peter’s teaching, 126, 150, 197, 203; 
see also Monasticism. 
Asia Minor, churches in, 75, 257, 276, 
3973 
apostolic foundation, 220; Peter, go, 
IOI, 115; John, 90; 
see also Papias; Polycarp; Irenaeus; 
Polycrates; Firmilian; Eusebius 
of Caesarea; Eusebius of Nico- 
media; Basil; Gregory Nazian- 
zen; cEustathius of Sebaste; 
Marcellus of Ancyra; Caesarea; 
Ephesus; Smyrna; Pontus; 
Cappadocia; Seleucia; Tyana. 
Athanasian Creed, 183. 
Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, 212, 
214, 225, 220, 334, 387, 419, 431- 
432, 471, 475-476, 490-506, 509- 
519, 521, 523, 525-533, 535-546, 
548, 550-551, 553; 555-564, 566, 
568, 579, 572-580, 583-587, 506, 
604, 607, 611-614, 636-640, 643, 
659; 
Oratio contra Arium, 410; 
Apologia contra Arianos, 471, 
518, 530-532, 586; 
De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi, 
437; 
Historia Arianorum, 472, 514, 518, 
519, 533, 538, 541, 565, 576, 586; 
De Sententiis Dionysii, 432, 434, 4353 
Epistola ad Afros, 604; 
Letter to Rufinianus, 551; 
De Synodis, 546. 
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, 75, 118, 
122, 181-182, 185-186, 444, 452, 
458, 502; 
Sermones, 75, 118; 
Epistolae, 102, 194, 461, 483; 
De Haeresibus, 186, 194; 
Breviculus Collationis cum Donatistis, 
448, 460-461; 
De Unico Baptismo; contra Petilia- 
num, 445-446. 
Aurelian, emperor, 215, 224, 229, 439- 
441, 452. 
Auxentius, bishop of Milan, 183, 538, 
552, 604, 606, 611, 634, 635, 638, 
660. 


593, 


435- 


719 


Babylon (Rome), 8, 56, 80, gr. 
Bacchylus, bishop of Corinth, 280. 
Baptism, sacrament of, 16, 50, 408; 
creed in use in Roman service, 264; 
the Trinity, 26, 110, 290, 466, 482; 
proper days, 700; 
authority of the bishop, 240; 
sins after baptism, 243; 
infant baptism, 700; 
second baptism of heretics, 311, 395- 
397, 402, 403, 407, 410, 412, 416, 
417, 419, 421, 466, 482, 551, 668, 
699 ; 
validity when bestowed by heretics, 
TIO, 311, 391, 394, 395, 403, 411, 
423-424; 
synod of African churches on bap- 
tism, 256 A. D., 397; 
Peter, 85-87, 121, 204, 410; 
John the Baptist, 85; 
Tertullian, 85, 87. 

Barberini Psalter, 200. 

Barnabas, 7, 31, 54, 55, 71, 136, 166, 
202; (278,. 274. 

Basil, bishop of Ancyra, 510, 546, 587. 

Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappado- 
Cia, 212, 217, 227, 422, 435, 592, 
506, 611-618, 620, 627, 628, 636— 
657; 

Epistolae, 435, 597, 610, 613-615, 627, 
636-657. 

Basilides, bishop of Leon and Astorga, 
393-394, 401-402. 

Benedict, canon of St. Peter, Ordo Ro- 
manus, 207. 

Benevolence of the Roman Church, 
210-217, 235-245, 251, 252, 336, 
353, 385. 

Béziers, Council of, 542. 

Bishop, early use of word, 3; 

authority, 239-240; 

worthiness to administer duties, 321; 

Cyprian’s conception of the office, 
Sa4 Aris 

relation to the Church, 329; 

only one in each city, 366; 

see also Rome: bishop. 

Bishop and apostle, distinction, 50, 65, 
99, 162, 2609. 

Bishop of the bishops, 163, 223, 231, 
296, 301, 334, 396, 411, 476, 596; 
see also episcopus episcoporum. 

Bishops ordained in Peter’s lifetime, 
167, 203. 


720 


Bithynia, church at, Peter’s relation to, 
90, IOI, II5. 

Bogomils, see Massalides. 

Boniface I, bishop of Rome, 626. 

Book of the Popes, see Liber Pontzfi- 


calis. 

Brescia, bishopric of, 218; see also Phil- 
aster. 

Breviarium Romanum, 75, 119, 463, 
470. 


Caecilian, bishop of Carthage, 218, 450, 
451-457, 459-462, 464-466, 479- 
480, 483-484. 

Caesarea, church at, 166, 167; 

see also Basil; Eusebius; Firmilian; 
Theoctistus; Theophilus; Zac- 
chaeus. 

Caesarea, library, 97, I13, 212, 442. 

Caius of Rome, 82-84, 106. 

Calendar of the Roman Church, see 
Chronographer of 354. 

Caligula, emperor, 71, 98, 100, 107. 

Callistus (Callixtus), bishop of Rome, 
BEI. 922 ,1293) 9282 260," 275, (2757 
2905-312, 351, 391, 395, 472, 712, 
716. 

Canon, of the Christian scriptures, 4, 
222; see also Muratorian Frag- 
ment ; 

ecclesiastical canons of the holy 
apostles, 197; see also Constitu- 
tiones Apostolorum; 

lack of uniform canon of authority in 
early Church, 255; 

search for canon of apostolic author- 
ity, 273. 

Canons of Hippolytus, 386. 

Canons of the councils, 697; see also the 
various councils and synods. 

Canticles, book of, 325, 658. 

Cappadocia, church at, 217; 


Peter’s relation with, 90, ror, 
115; 

see also Firmilian; Basil; Gregory; 
Caesarea. 


Carthage, church at, 84, 847, 110, 218, 
294, 450, 462; 
cooperation with Rome, 322-301; 
catholic religion in, 453-454, 465; 
see also Tertullian; Cyprian; Caecil- 
ian; Majorinus; Mensurius; 
Pompey; Restitutus; Stephen. 
Carthage, Council of, 253 A.D., 349, 387; 


INDEX 


Third Council, 223; 
Acta, 410, 4II. 
Cassius, bishop of Tyre, 284. 
Catalogus Liberianus, see Chronog- 
rapher of 354. 
Cathari, (Puritans), 70, 348, 382, 301. 
Cathedra, 105, 111, 164, 326, 348; see 
also Peter, founder of Roman 
episcopate, chair of. 
Catholic Church: 
Ignatius, 240, 286; 
Muratorian Fragment, 286; 
Tertullian, 286; 
Clement of Alexandria, 286; 
Hippolytus, 286, 311; 
Cyprian, 324, 325, 329, 358, 359, 363, 
366, 369, 374, 404, 405, 413, 414; 
Cornelius, 384; 
Eusebius, 382; 
Council of Arles, 480; 
Constantine, 455, 458; 
Optatus, 462; 
Julius, 513; 
Liberius, 562, 567. 
Catholicism, a characteristic of Church 
and faith, 286. 
Celestine I, bishop of Rome, 603. 
Celsus, 144; see also Origen, Contra 
Celsum. 
Cerdon, 215, 266, 272, 408, 412. 
Cerinthus, 270. 
Chair of Peter, see Peter, founder of the 
Roman episcopate. 
Chalcedon, Council of, 451 A.D., 440, 
486, 624; 
Canons, 232. 
Charismata, 259. 
Charles the Bald, 357, 618. 
Chastity in the Church, 702-705. 
Christ, the Rock, 295. 
Christianity, religio illicita, 330; religio 
licitta under Gallienus, 420; legal- 
ized under Constantine, 442, 534. 
Chronographer of 354 (Compendium of 
354), 104-105, 114, 709; 
table of dates for Easter, 105; 
Catalogus Liberianus, 60, 99, 105, 
107, III, 250, 312, 442, 444, 709- 
715; 
Feriale Ecclesiae Romanae, 105-108. 
Chrysostom, 91, 353. 
Church, early, struggle of Judaistic and 
Gentile groups for supremacy, 
Ig, 125, 126, 159, 287. 


INDEX 


Cicero, De Oratore, 695. 
Claim to the power of Peter, see Pe- 
trine theory and prerogatives. 
Clarus, bishop of Ptolemais, 284-285. 
Claudius, emperor, 57, 58, 98, 115, 116, 
126, 130, 131, 136, 161, 190, 196. 
Clemens, Titus Flavius, 67, 214. 
Clement of Alexandria, 31, 38, 44, 58, 
74; 78-82, 84, 88, OI, 93, 120, 136, 
243, 273-274, 276, 286, 316. 
Stromata, 78-79, 81-82, 136, 273; 
Protrepticus, 78; 
Hypotyposes, 78, 80-81, 273; 
Quis Dives Salvetur, 38; 
Paedagogus, 44, 78. 
Clement I, bishop of Rome, 38, 64, 66— 
69, 73, 75; 85, 86, 99, IOI, 112, 
123, 127, 159-165, 167, 197, 202, 
203, 211, 214, 235-239, 242-245, 
249, 251, 268, 269, 278, 279, 293, 
294, 296, 304, 709, 710, 716; 
ordained by Peter, 85, 86, 150, 203, 
293-294 ; 
Peter’s successor, 85, 159, 160, 162, 
164, 709; 
Ad Corinthios, I Clement, 39, 66-69, 
75, 159, 216, 221, 235-239, 250, 
252, 352; 
Pseudo-Clement, 94, 126, 129, 140, 
163 ; . 
II Clement, see Soter; 
Epistola Clementis ad Jacobum, 85, 
94, 123, 127, 159-165, 167, 294, 
296, 394, 700; 
Journeys or Circuits of Peter, 121, 
I24, 159-161: 
Recognitiones, 57, 159-163, 166, 
167, 202; 
Homilies, 160-161, 166, 167. 
Clement VIII, bishop of Rome, tomb 
of Peter, 103. 
Cleomenes, 304, 305. 
Clergy, hierarchy of, 3, 215, 217, 220, 
222, 303, 353, 384, 478; 
conditions for advancement, 705-706; 
exempted by Constantine from cer- 
tain civil duties, 456; 
marriage, 200, 310, 701. 
Cletus (Anacletus, Anencletus) bishop 
of Rome, 85, 101, 112, 162, 240, 
250, 268, 700, 7II, 716. 
Codex Marcianus, 169. 
Codex Vercellensis, see Actus Petri cum 
Simone. 


721 


Collectio Avellana, 233, 580, 600, 671, 
6809. 
Collection of the Deacon Theodosius, 
408. 
Commodian, 
153, 155. 
Commodus, emperor, 275, 298, 306, 308, 
320. 
Communion, sacrament of, 41, 44, 240, 
284, 295, 312, 411, 701, 702; 
perversion, 228, 386; 
authority of the bishop, 220; 
see also the Lapsed. 
Compendium of 354, see Chronographer 
of 354. 
Confession, institution of, 26. 
Confession, Peter’s, universal applica- 
tion, 288, 295, 297, 302-304, 317— 
323, 398, 414; see also Peter. 
Confessors, 68, 295, 341, 342, 344, 349, 
351, 361, 364, 366, 383, 400, 444, 
514; 
Cyprian’s correspondence with, 341, 
342, 344, 349, 368, 386. 
Constans, emperor, 216, 467, 480, 404, 
495, 499-501, 517, 530, 533-535; 
541, 562, 575, 577. 
Constantine the Great, 94, 96, 102, 104- 
106, TIO 162,°153; 221-212, 225) 
216, 218, 228, 229, 231, 443, 448, 
449-459, 461-471, 474-480, 483- 
485, 487-489, 501, 534, 535, 559, 
580, 602, 605, 615, 668, 671; | 
“ general bishop ” of the Church, 476, 


Carmen Apologeticum, 


5343 
Letter to Caecilian, 454-455; 
Letter to Miltiades, 457; 
Letter to Chrestus of Syracuse, 4773 
Letter to Aelafius, 470; 
Letter to the church in Alexandria, 
487; 
Anulinus’ Letter to, 456; 
Donation of Constantine, 463; 
see also Eusebius, Vita Constantini. 
Constantine II, emperor, 490, 4094, 
575: 
Constantinople, “‘ New Rome,” 216, 599, 
623, 624, 626, 679, 686. 
Constantinople, See of, 216, 619-626; 
first rank in the East, 216, 227; 
second to Rome, 227, 623-625, 686; 
see also Demophilus; Eudoxius; Greg- 
ory Nazianzen; Macedonius; 
Maximus; Nectarius; Paul. 


722 


Constantinople, Councils of: 360 A.D., 
548; 381 A.D., 488, 493, 598, 599; 
607, 621, 624, 626, 677-686; 382 
A.D., 686; Fifth General Council 
553 A.D., 89; 

Canons, 381 A.D., 227, 232, 599, 623, 
685-686. 

Constantius, emperor, 216, 225, 226, 
491, 493-496, 499-502, 515, 517, 
530, 535-553, 556, 559-566, 568- 
583, 604, 646. 

Constitutiones Apostolorum, 197, 201- 
203, 310. 

Consubstantialis, 472; see also homo- 
Ousios. 

Cordova, 219; see also Hosius. 

Corinth, church at, 66, 75, 86, 221, 235, 
294; 

apostolic foundation, 86; Paul, 87; 
and Peter, 76; 

see also Clement, Ad Corinthios ; Paul: 
Corinthians I and II; Bacchy- 
lus; Dionysius; Primus. 

Cornelius, bishop of Rome, 211, 215, 
222, 348-389, 391, 392, 400, 402, 
442, 713, 716. 

Corpus Hermeticum, 242. 

Corpus Juris Canonici, 486. 

Council of 692 A.D., 197. 

Creeds, diversity, 220; 
Apostles’, 222, 271; 
in Irenaeus’ day, 

294; 
Four of Antioch, 494; 
Athanasian, 183; 
Council of Nicaea, 225, 228, 535, 553, 
603, 612, 673; 
Council of Antioch, 543; 
Council of Sardica, 498, 519; 
Council of Sirmium, 544; 

Council of Rimini-Seleucia, 228, 547, 
550, 553, 599, 603, 612, 635; 
Damasus’ creed for Eastern bishops, 

229; 
see also Faith, Roman. 

Crete, churches in, 75. 

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, 61, 84, 99, 
III, 212, 218, 223, 314, 322-320, 
331-348, 349-352, 354-384, 387- 
422, 424-425, 433, 453, 460, 466. 
422, 424-425, 433, 453, 460, 
466. 

doctrine of the keys, 323; 
See of Peter, 61, 326, 370; 


2685 \27Ee agers 


INDEX 


catholic church, see Catholic Church; 
see Confessors, correspondence with; 
De Habitu Virginum, 325; 
Epistolae, 314, 322, 327-329, 332, 
334-348, 358-381, 387-390, 393, 
399-419, 424-425; 
De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, 324, 
325-327, 332; 
De Lapsis, 369, 371. 
Cyril of Alexandria, 441; 
Apologia, 441; 
Prologus Paschalis, 473. 
Cyril of Jerusalem, 182; 
Catecheses, 189-1090. 


Damasus, bishop of Rome, 108-110, 
I12, 113, 211, 212; 216, 219, 227— 
233, 301, 334, 445-447, 539, 540, 
580-581, 595-697, 699, 709; 716; 
councils, 230-231; 
clergy of Rome and Italy, 599-608; 
western churches outside of Italy, 
608-611 ; 
churches of the East, 611-629; 
inscription in the Platonia, 109-110; 
inscriptions on the tombs of Marcel- 
linus and Eusebius, 446-447; 
Epistolae, 647-648, 673, 677-679, 694- 
696. 
Daniel, book of, 574. 
Deacon, 3. 
Decius, emperor, 89, 215, 314, 328, 330—- 
331, 334, 348, 354, 357, 372, 
450. 
Decretals, papal, 89, 123, 161, 197, 230, 
551, 697-708. 
Demetrianus, bishop of Antioch, 387, | 
433, 438. 
Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, 88, 
312, 313, 316, 321. 
Demiurge, the, 263, 266, 260. 
Demophilus, bishop of Constantinople, 
540, 584, 620, 621. 
Didache, 4, 154. ‘ 
Didascalia Apostolorum, 60, 154, 156- 
157, 160, 197, 541. 
Dio Cassius, 57. 
Diocese, civil meaning, 685. 
Diocletian, emperor, 93, 94, I07, II0, 
215, 217, 252, 420, 443, 486, 609. 
Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, 63, 
223, 224, 229, 331, 332, 350-352; 
354, 386, 3901, 397-399, 419-423, 
430-435, 437, 472; 


INDEX 


A Refutation and Defense, 431, 4353 

To the Sabellians, 430; 

Letters on baptism, 419, 421, 422. 
Dionysius the Areopagite, 63. 
Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, 66, 75- 

76, 217, 251-253, 262. 

Dionysius, bishop of Milan, 538, 564- 
567, 569. 

Dionysius I, bishop of Rome, 224, 228, 
229, 420, 423, 429-438, 440, 472, 
489, 494, 642, 713, 716. 

Dionysius Exiguus, 197, 520; 

paschal lists, 473. 

Discipline, Christian, 220, 222, 243-244, 
209, 301, 310-311, 551; see also 
Penance. 

Ditheists, 300, 306. 

Docetists, 39, 183. 

Doctrine, search for true, 221, 248, 250, 
262, 263, 273, 201, 204; 

orthodox, 39, 259, 276, 551, 5098; 

see also Petrine prerogative; 
Creeds; Faith. 

Domitian, emperor, 67, 71, 198, 236. 

Domitilla, 198, 214. 

Domnus, bishop of Antioch, 433, 434, 
438-441. 

Donation of Constantine, 463. 

Donatus, 452, 454, 459-462, 466; 

Donatists, 110, 112, 218, 229, 233, 

435, 444, 452-468, 470, 474, 477- 
484, 488, 535, 541, 603, 659-661, 
668; 

trial at Rome, 454-462; 

Council of Arles, 477-484. 

Dorotheus, deacon of Antioch, 612- 
613, 615-617, 638-639, 642, 647, 
649-651, 653-654, 657. 

Douay version of the Bible, 6. 

Dualism, 126, 263. 


Easter, table of dates, 105; 
controversy, 38, 221, 222, 246, 247, 
275-285, 295, 397, 398, 413, 465- 
466, 469, 472, 473, 481-482, 487, 
508 ; 
synods on Easter observance, 276; 
Dionysius Exiguus, paschal lists, 473; 
Cyril of Alexander, Prologus Pas- 
chalis, 473; 
reverence due, 700. 
Eastern church: beliefs and practices, 
192, 220; 
and State, 225, 553, 585; 


723 


internal dissension, 220, 224-226, 235, 
236, 441, 607, 619, 641, 658; 
sects and parties: 
Montanists, condemnation of, 221, 
2560,°262; 
Quartodecimanians, see; 
Arians, see; 
Eusebians, see; 
Homoiousians, see; 
Apollinarians, see; 
Anomoeans, see; 
differences from West: Easter, see; 
lapsed, treatment of, 351 sqq.; 
baptism, 395, 397, 403, 411, 419, 
421, 466; 
Nicene Creed, 504; 
Trinity, doctrine of, 611, 680; 
antagonism to West, 38, 217, 221-223, 
226, 231-232, 307, 398, 443, 492, 
496, 499, 505-506, 535, 508; 
bishop of Alexandria, 216, 530, see 
Athanasius; 
Churches of East excommunicated, 
221-222, 277, 2825 
Council of Constantinople and re- 
vival of Eastern separatism, 
677 Sqq.; 
submission to West, 224-232, 230, 
420, 4990, 515, 553, 554, 592, 607, 
627, 658; 
question of Paul and Domnus, 
submitted to Rome, 440; 
primacy of Peter accepted, 226, 
658, 665-666; 
creed, 271; Roman faith prescribed 
as standard for the East, 227, 
673-677 ; 
appeal to Damasus, 227, 231, 596- 
598, 611-629, 634-657, 681. 

Ecclesiasticus, book of, 427. 

Ecclesiolae, 214. 

Edict of 378, imperial confirmation of 

papal jurisdiction, 625, 666-672. 
Eck, papal champion, 24. 
Egypt, church in, 93, 486, 657, 659; 
apostolic foundation, 220; Mark, 116; 
see also Alexandria; Clarus. 
Eleutherus, bishop of Rome, 38, 211, 
221, 228, 249-251, 255-260, 262- 
264, 269, 275, 277, 712, 716. 

Elvira, Synod of, 311. 

Ephesius, Ursinian bishop of Rome, 602, 
601. 

Ephesus, 38, 39, 44, 86, 294; 


724 


apostolic foundation, 220; John, 37- 


39, 195, 270; 


see also Polycrates; Paul: Ephesians. 


Ephraim, the Syrian, 287, 627; 
comments on Peter, 665-666. 
Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, 70, 186, 
249, 250, 615; 
Adversus Haereses, 24, 121, 185, 103, 
625. 
Episcopate, see Bishop, Roman episco- 
pate. 
Episcopus, 3, 60, 65. 
Episcopus episcoporum, 231; see also 
Bishop of the bishops. 
Epistolae decretales, 697; see also De- 
cretals, papal. 
Erasmus, 320. 
Ermes, brother of Pope Pius, see Her- 
mas. 
I Esdras, 693. 
Eucharist, see Communion. 
Eudoxius, Arian bishop of Constanti- 
nople, 553, 561, 592, 595. 
Eunomius, 186. 
Euodius, see Evodius. 
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, 63, 74, 
75, 79, OT, 96-102, 105, 121, 122, 
2it, 246, 249-251, 257, 258, 205, 
274, 277, 279, 285, 313, 314, 316, 
352, 421, 422, 440, 442-445, 450, 
463, 468, 470, 471, 476, 534; 
classification of apocrypha, 120; 
Historia Ecclesiastica, 18, 29, 31, 38, 
39; 62, 63, 66, 72, 74; 76, 80, 82, 83, 
QI, 97-102, I14, 181, 182, 188- 
189, 215, 217, 246, 250-251, 260, 
261, 269, 273, 275, 278-285, 306, 
315, 317, 350, 382, 398, 419, 422— 
424, 429, 430, 437-438, 441-444, 
448, 470, 474, 502; 
Chronicon, 97-100, 113, 116-117; 
Vita Constantini, 97, 449, 450, 468, 
470, 471, 473, 474, 476, 484-485, 
534, 602. 
Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 468, 
475; 491, 492, 495, 504, 655-657; 
Eusebians, 492-494, 496, 497, 499- 
505, 507, 508, 500, 535, 550. 
Eusebius, bishop of Rome, 445-447, 
714, 716. 
Eusebius, bishop of Samosata, 644-647. 
Eusebius, bishop of Vercellae, 537, 538, 
543, 551, 556-560, 563-569, 580, 
614, 646, 659. 


INDEX 


Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, 471, 474, 
518. 

Eustathius of Sebaste, 553-554, 587, 
592-595; 617, 655, 656. 

Eutychianus (Eutycianus), bishop of 
Rome, 442, 443, 714, 716. 

Evagrius of Antioch, 614, 615, 646, 647, 
661. 

Evangelium Duodecim Apostolorum, 
662; see also Gospels, apocry- 
phal. 

Evaristus (Aristus), bishop of Rome, 
249, 269, 711, 716. 

Evodius, bishop of Antioch, 116, 203. 

Exodus, book of, 659, 606. 

Ezekiel, book of, 335, 427, 701, 705. 


Fabianus (Fabius), bishop of Rome, 
107, 229, 313-316, 326, 331, 332, 
_ 337, 343, 372, 442, 712, 716. 
Fabius, bishop of Antioch, 351, 352, 
354, 355, 382. 
Faith, Roman, apostolic, 226, 228, 264, 
516, 549, 613, 626, 627. 
prescribed as standard for the East, 
227, 619, 673-677; 
see also Creed, Roman; Petrine pre- 
rogative, doctrine. 
Fasting, 194, 105, 244, 283, 700. 
Faustini et Marcellini Preces, 538, 602, 
689. 
Felix of Aptonga, 450, 451, 484. 
Felix I, bishop of Rome, 211, 224, 220, 
439-443, 494; | 
Letter to Bishop Maximus and the 
clergy of Alexandria, 441; 
Quae Gesta Sunt inter Liberium et 
Felicem Episcopos, 580, 630. 
Felix II, bishop of Rome, 540, 545, 551, 
555, 577, 580-583, 587, 588, 599, 
630, 716. 
Feriale Ecclesiae Romanae, see Chron- 
ographer of 354. 
Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cap- 


padocia, 223, 232, 355, 387, 
397-399, 411, 420, 432, 433, 437; 
438. 


Fish, symbol of the, see Ichthus. 

Fishes, draught of, 30, 44-46. 

Flavian, bishop of Antioch, 625, 626, 
676, 677. 

Flavius Vopiscus, biography of Aurelian, 
440. 

Fortunatus, 355, 377, 378. 


INDEX 


Gaius, bishop of Rome, 443, 714, 716. 
Galatia, church at: 
apostolic foundation: Peter, 90, 101, 
755. 

Gallienus, emperor, 429, 430, 432, 443. 

Gallus, emperor, 354, 357, 380. 

Gambling, Sermon on, see De Aleatori- 
bus. 

Gates of hell, 25, 318, 320, 321, 325, 
328, 588, 580. 

Gaul, church in, 218, 257; 

relations with Rome, 229, 230, 392, 
393, 399; 

see also Irenaeus; Prosper; Marcian; 
Maximin; Paulinus; Martin of 
Tours; Hilary; Arles; Lyons. 

Gelasius I, bishop of Rome, Epistola 
de Recipiendis et Non Recipien- 
dis Libris, 75, 89, 121, 161. 

Gelasius of Cyzicus, 471. 

Genesis, book of, 695, 696. 

Gentile group, struggle for supremacy, 
see Church, early. 

Gentiles, Christianity open to, 48, 53- 
55, IOI, 158, 159. 

George of Cappadocia, elected to Alex- 
andria by Antioch, 542. 

Gifts of the Church, the six, 112; first 
gift, see Peter, seat of. 

Gifts of the Spirit (Charismata), 250. 

Gnosticism, 4, 48, 77, 84, 85, 91, 122, 125, 
134, 158, 168, 183, 192, 197, 247, 
248, 255) 256, 263-265, 272, 274, 
287, 2909, 409, 412. 

Godhead, the, 225, 303, 306, 430, 467, 
471, 550, 640. 

Gordian, emperor, 313. 

Gospel of the Egyptians, 
254. 

-Gospels, 81; accepted books, 5; source 
of true doctrine, 263; see also 
- separate books. 

Gospels, apocryphal, 120-122; see also 
Evangelium Duodecim A posto- 
lorum. 

Gratian, emperor, 183, 184, 218, 231, 
602, 606-611, 618, 619, 633, 652, 
666, 669, 675, 676, 679. 

Gratian, medieval compiler, Concor- 
dantia, (Decretum; Corpus Juris 
Canonici) 197, 520, 686. 

Greece, churches in, 75, 419; 

relations with Rome, 230; see also 
Corinth, Thessalonica. 


152, 253, 


725 


Gregory, Eusebian bishop of Alexan- 
dria, 500, 519, 522. 
Gregory of Cappadocia, 491, 492, 512, 
513, 521, 542. 
Gregory of Granada, 602, 608, 689. 
Gregory Nazianzen, 227, 233, 493, 596, 
598, 620-623; 
Poemata, Carmen de Vita Sua, 622, 
679-685. 
Gregory of Nyssa, 644, 650. 
Gregory I, bishop of Rome, 34; 
Epistolae, 106, 178, 624. 
Gregory VII, bishop of Rome, 3or. 
Gregory, bishop of Tours, 200; 
De Gloria Martyrum, 206. 


Hadrian, emperor, 73, 119. 
Hegesippus of Syria, 221, 248-251, 262, 
269, 273, 709; 
Memorabilia, 249. 
Helena, mother of Constantine, 449, 
470. 
Helenus, bishop of Tarsus, 355, 420, 


433. 

Heraclas, bishop of Alexandria, 424. 

Heraclitus, 304. 

Heraclius, rival bishop of Rome, 445- 
447. 

Heresies, rise of, 4, 64, 76-77, 89, 157, 
189, 220, 247, 259, 263, 272, 274, 
275, 299, 4073 

condemnation, 266; 

Peter’s triumph, 197; 

manuals on heresy, 84, 86, 121, 120, 
182, 185, 186, 298; 

apocryphal writings, 120, 121. 

Hermas (Ermes) of Rome, 57, 221, 222, 
242-245, 274, 711; 

Pastor, 4, 242-245, 274-275. 

Herod, 20, 48, 56, 92, 100, 177, 204. 

Hilary, the deacon, 537, 538, 551, 563, 
569, 580, 590. 

Hilary of Poitiers, 212, 231, 233, 500, 
502, 522, 532, 535, 537, 541-543, 
540-549, 556, 564, 580, 583, 588- 
590, 608; 

De Synodis, 546; 

Fragmenta Historica, 500, 522, 532, 
537, 541, 547, 548, 556, 567, 583, 
590; 

De Trinitate (De _ Fide 
Arianos) 543, 589; 
Liber ad Constantium Imperatorem 

548, 549, 564; 


adversus 


726 


Commentarius in Matthaeum, 588. 
Himerius, bishop of Tarragona, 
Siricius’ Decretal to, 697—708. 
Hippolytus (Ypollitus), bishop at 
Rome, 98, 129, 131-134, 149, 172, 
182, 212, 223, 265-286, 296-300, 
304-312, 316, 351, 712; 
Refutatio Omnium Haeresium, 132- 
133, 298, 304-312; 
Syntagma, 185; 
Canons of Hippolytus, 386. 
Homilies, Journeys of Peter, see Clem- 
ent, Pseudo-. 
Homoiousios, 546, 553, 587, 592, 655; 
Homoiousians, 546, 550, 554, 555, 587; 
599, 612, 614, 617, 620, 625, 660. 
Homoousios, 431, 432, 435, 437, 471, 
472, 474, 492, 495, 545, 546, 548, 
549, 550, 554, 555, 587, 592, 595, 
655, 656; 
Homoousians, 554, 555, 587, 501. 
Hosius (Ossius), bishop of Cordova, 
218, 231, 233, 448, 451, 452, 455, 
468, 469, 471, 495-497, 518-529, 
SE ee eee 
587; 
Liberius’ Letter to Hostus, 556; 
Hosius’ Letter to Constantius, §77- 
580. 
Hydatius, bishop of Lusitania, 609, 610, 
692, 693. 
Hyginus (Higinus), bishop of Rome, 
249, 260, 272, 283, 408, 711, 716. 
Hypostasis, 550, 612, 659-661, 676. 


Ichthus, 44. 
Iliad, The, 650. 
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, 5, 39, 71- 
72, 74, 77, 99, 102, 203, 239-242, 
270, 286, 366; 
Epistles, 19, 60, 1543 
Ad Romanos, 72, 214, 216, 241-242; 
Ad Magnesios, 241-242; 
Ad Smyrnaeos, 240. 
Infallibility, Decree of Vatican Council, 
49. 
Innocent I, bishop of Rome, 161, 233; 
Epistolae: Ad Exuperium, 121. 
Irenaeus of Asia and Gaul, bishop of 
Lyons, 38, 39; 60, 74; 79, 77) 82— 
84, 129,5229) 131,e0do, sR eis, 
221-222, 238, 243, 246, 247, 249, 
257-273, 277, 279, 280, 282-284, 
286, 287, 297, 397, 408, 709; 


INDEX 


Epistle to Florinus, 38; 
Against Heresies, 38, 60, 78, 125, 126, 
131, 188, 265-272. 

Isidore, Pseudo-, apes 123, 161, 
197. 

Isaias, book of, 25, 237, 2095. 

Italy, church of, 217, sqq., 353, see also 
Cornelius; Damasus; Ambrose; 
Eusebius of Vercellae; Philaster; 
Valerian; Vincent; Aquileia; 
Brescia; Milan; Pozzuoli; pei 
Rome; Verona. 


James, apostle, brother of John, 4, 13, 
14, 17, 21, 26, 35, 54, 56, 73; 
James of Compostella, 124. 

James, apostle, bishop of Jerusalem, 10, 
79; Ill, 159, 167, 195; 203; 

apocryphal works, 120-121; see also 
Clement, Pseudo-, Epistola Cle- 
mentis ad Jacobum. 

Jeremias, book of, 658, 702. 

Jerome, 45, 64, 70, 84, 94, 102, 107, 108, 
III~L17, 121; 128, 166, 12595 274, 
277, 280, 312, 314, 334, 426, 502, 


596, 602, 627, 658-662, 694- 
696; 
Latin continuation of Eusebius’ 


Chronicon, 97, 113, 116, 581, 614; 
Translation, Homilies of Origen, 113; 
Revision, New Testament, 113, 595; 
Translation, Old Testament, 113; 
Psalterium Romanum; Psalterium 

Gallicanum, 113; 

Commentaries on the Scriptures, 114; 
De Viris Illustribus, 84, 114, 115, 243, 

274, 277, 5433 
Life of St. Peter, 58, 114, 115, 181; 
Epistolae, 89, 102, 119, 313, 315, 614, 

627, 634, 658-662, 694; 

Contra Luciferianos, 548, 602; 
Contra Iohannem Hieros, 610; 
Treatise on the Seraphim, 694; 
Damasus, Letters to Jerome, 694-606. 
Jerusalem, See of, 7, 54, 57, 58, 220; 
apostolic foundation, 220; James, 19, 

III, 159, 167, 195, 203, 273; 
position under Council of Nicaea, 

474, 486; 
see also Cyril; James; Aelia. 

Jerusalem, Council of, 51 A.D., 48, 53, 

56, 154, 197. 

John the presbyter, 74. 
John, apostle, 4, 13, 14, 17, 21, 26, 48, 


INDEX 


63, 79, 86, 90, 195, 221, 246-248, 
261, 263, 270, 273, 274, 276, 281, 
284, 287, 292, 293, 318; 
Gospel of, 24, 35-47; 85, 147, 270, 
292, 319, 589; 
Epistles, 37, 325, 335, 406, 428; 
I John, 37, 190; 
Acts (apocryphal), 120, 121. 
John the Baptist, 20, 87, 294, 414. 
Jonas, book of, 662. 
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 28, 
124. 
Journeys of Peter, see Clement, Pseudo-. 
Jovian, emperor, 552, 640. 
Judaistic group, struggle for supremacy, 
see Church, early. 
Julian, emperor, 225, 549, 552, 553. 
Julius I, bishop of Rome, 211, 212, 216, 
225, 226, 228-230, 471, 488-535, 
543, 554, 583, 611, 614, 630, 715; 
Letter to the Eusebian bishops at 
Antioch, 507; 
Letter to the church of Alexandria, 
530; 
Council of Sardica, Letter to Julius, 
S97, 
Julius Africanus, History of the World, 
97. . 
Justin Martyr, 98, 123, 128, 130, 1309, 
18I, 262, 279, 287; 
Apologia Prima, 99, 125, 130-131, 172, 
188, 284; 
Dialogue with Trypho, 131, 154. 
Pseudo-Justinian, Quaestiones et Re- 
sponsa ad Orthodoxos, 284. 


Keys, doctrine of the, 19, 23, 25, 41, 42, 
65, 92, 190, 195, 287, 292, 295, 
297, 302, 317, 318, 320, 321, 323, 
325, 328, 426, 588, 589, 606, 627, 
623, 666; see also Petrine prerog- 
atives. 

King James Version, 6. 

I Kings, book of (Douay) [I Samuel 
(King James version)], 571. 


Lactantius of Africa, 94-96, 605; 
De Mortibus Persecutorum, 70, 94- 
96; 
Divinae Institutiones, 94, 95. 
Lapsed, the, 93, 243, 328-336, 339-355; 
370, 382, 384, 389-393, 396, 400, 
412, 445, 669; 
policy towards, 139, 35%, 354, 370, 


727 


373, 384, 389, 391, 393, 396, 400, 
402, 405, 445, 701; 
penance and communion, 93, 333, 340, 
_ 344, 348, 351, 370, 393, 4055 
intercession of confessors, 331 sqq.; 
lapse of bishops, 226, 402, 443-444, 
460, 544, 551, 586. 
Lateran palace, 216, 449, 452, 459, 464, 


493, 540, 545, 599, 600. 


- Laying on of hands, 53, 165, 339, 353, 


396, 410, 414, 419, 460, 466, 482, 


700. 
Leo I, bishop of Rome, 186, 301, 473, 
628; 
Epistolae, 473, 624. 
Leo X, bishop of Rome, 301. 
Leviticus, book of, 703, 705. 
Libellus, 330. 
Liber Pontificalis, 102-104, 274, 430, 
485, 545, 601. 
Liberian Catalogue, see Chronographer 
of 354. 
Liberius, bishop of Rome, 105, 212, 216, 
226, 228-230, 232, 468, 500, 534- 
597, 599, 603, 606, 611, 617, 629, 
630, 656, 675, 607, 700, 715, 716; 
Epistolae, 500, 556, 558; 
to Hosius, 556; 
to Constantius, 559; 
to the exiled bishops, 567; 
in exile, 583; 
to the bishops in Italy, 590; 
Quae Gesta Sunt inter Liberium et 
Felicem Episcopos, 580, 630. 
Linus, bishop of Rome, 61, 67, 78, 85, 
QQ-IOI, I12, 162, 198, 203, 205, 
214, 249, 268, 710, 716; 
legend, Linus and Peter, 145; 
Pseudo-Linus, Martyrium beati Petri 
apostoli a Lino episcopo con- 
Scriptum, 197, 198, 203. 
Logia, 18. 
Logos, 37, 309, 431. 
Lucian, The Lover of Falsehood, 146; 
Peregrinus, 332. 
Lucian, martyr, letters of pardon to the 
lapsed, 332, 340, 341, 345, 346. 
Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, 537, 538, 
543, 551, 563-569, 580, 590, 659, 
601; 
Moriendum, 566; 
Lucifer, Pancratius, and Hilary, 
Letter to Eusebius, 563; 
Luciferians, 602, 608, 689. 


728 INDEX 


Lucius, bishop of Rome, 389-392, 400, 
419, 442, 713, 716. 

Luke, evangelist, 26, 49, I0I, 131; 

Gospel of, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26, 28-35, 
81, 147, 265, 337, 5890, 658, 661, 
662; 

see also Acts of the Apostles. 

Luther, Martin, 24. 

Lyons, church at, letters of the martyrs 
to Eleutherus, 257, 260; Irenaeus’ 
converts, 262, 271; see also Gaul, 
church in. 


Macarius, priest at Rome, 602, 603, 689, 
690. 

Macarius Magnes (Macarius, bishop of 
Magnesia?), 91; 

Unigenitus, 92-93. 

Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, 
553: 

Macedonians, 553, 555, 591-592. 

Magnentius, emperor, 50I, 502, 535, 
536, 562, 575. 

Majorinus, bishop of Carthage, 451, 452, 
456, 461. 

Manicheans, 77, 121, 600. 

Marcellinus, bishop of Rome, 443-445, 
714, 716. 

Marcellinus and Faustinus, De Confes- 
sione Verae Fidez ... Preces 
Valentiniano, Theodosio et Ar- 
cadio, 538, 602, 680. 

Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, 492-500, 
504, 505, 510, 513-515, 518, 519, 
523-526, 528-5290, 587, 617, 639- 
640, 651, 656, 657. 

Marcellus, bishop of Rome, 444-446, 
714, 716. 

Marcellus, senator, 137, 199, 204. 

Marcia, mistress of Commodus, 275, 
298, 308. 

Marcian, emperor, 624, 634. 

Marcian, bishop of Arles, 392, 393, 400. 

Marcion, Gnostic, 85, 186, 215, 255, 258, 
259, 263-266, 268-270, 272, 275, 
299, 408, 412, 436. 

Marcus, bishop of Rome, 457, 488, 715, 
716. 

Marcus Aurelius, emperor, 257, 279. 

Mark, evangelist, 7, 20, 58, 80, 116; 

Gospel of, 7-21, 23, 26, 28, 29, 33, 34, 
81, 90, 139, 144, 265, 292, 318, 
579, 665; 

influence on other gospels, 18, 31; 


Peter’s relation to, 7, 80, 81, 90, 
II4, 116. 

Marriage: apostles, 81; clergy, 310, 7oT. 

Martin of Tours, 185, 608. 

Martyr, early meaning, 68, 259, 260, 
281, 205, 306, 308, 400, 444, 590. 

Martyrs, authority of the, 257, 260, 
331-332, 339-341, 345, 346, 354, 
355. 

Martyrdom, meritoriousness of, 85, 117; 

of heretics, 406. 

Martyrdom of Isaiah, see Ascensio 
Jesaiae. 

Martyrdom of the Blessed Apostle 
Peter as recorded by Linus the 
Bishop, see Linus, Pseudo-. 

Martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter 
and Paul, see Martyrium Sanc- 
torum Apostolorum Petri et 
Pauli. 

Martyrium beati Petri apostoli a Lino 
episcopo conscriptum, see Linus, 
Pseudo-. * 

Martyrium Sanctorum Apostolorum 
Petri et Pauli, 168-179. 

Mass, liturgy of the, 197. 

Massalides, 70. 

Matthew, apostle, 18, 94; 

Gospel of, 14-29, 32-34, 64, 78, 81, 
139, 143, 144, 147, 154, 163, 190, 
223, 265, 286, 288, 290, 292, 303, 
310, 317, 319, 320, 328, 366, 377, 
427, 627, 631, 665, 703; 

Matthew, XVI, 16-19: 23-25, 64, 
143, 163, 223, 287, 292, 296, 207, 
317, 323, 325, 426, 627; 

apocryphal works, 121. 

Matthias, successor to Judas, 31, 95; 

Gospel of (apocryphal), 120. 

Maxentius, emperor, 215, 443-448. 

Maximian, emperor, 94, 577. 

Maximin, bishop of Trier, 497, 518, 537. 

Maximin, emperor, 94, 541. 

Maximus, emperor, 610. 


Maximus, bishop of Alexandria, 433, 


437, 440. 

Maximus of Turin, De Eleemosynis, 
284. 

Maximus, confessor, 365, 383. 

Maximus, Cynic, candidate for the See 
of Constantinople, 620-621, 678, 
680. 

Melchiades, bishop of Rome, see Mil- 

tiades. 


INDEX 


Meletius of Antioch, 550, 553, 612-622, 
625, 638, 642, 644-640, 657; 659, 
662, 676, 677, 681, 782. 

Melitine, Council of, 655. 

Melito, bishop of Sardis, 279, 281. 

Menander, 270, 272. 

Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, 450. 

_ Merida, church at, 393, 394. 

Methodius of Tyre, gr. 

Milan, church at, 216, 218; see also Am- 
brose; Auxentius; Dionysius; 
Sabinus; 

Milan synods at, 500, 530, 561, 564; 
355 A.D., 537, 538, 551, 565, 566, 


607 ; 
Milan, seat of imperial government, 215. 
Miltiades (Melchiades), bishop of 


' Rome, 216, 224, 229, 444, 445, 
448-465, 483, 488, 714, 716. 
Ministry of the word, 50. 
Mirabilia, medieval guidebooks, 178. 
Miracle, gift of, 11, 17, 27, 31, 48, 51, 
955 260, 290. 
Monarchianism, 183, 260, 300, 304-305, 
421, 430; see also Sabellians. 
Monasticism, 113, 198, 697. 
Monophysites, 186. 
Montanus, 83, 256, 259, 260; 
Montanists, 77, 82-84, 221, 228, 252, 
255-257, 262, 264, 276, 277, 297); 
303, 332, 416. 
Muratori, 50; 
Muratorian Fragment, 5, 37, 49, 222, 
242, 243, 286, 288. 


Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople, 
623, 626, 688. 
Nereus and Achilleus, see Acta Nerei et 
Achille. 
Nero, emperor, 60, 62, 67, 60, 71, 83, 
90, 95, 96, 98, 100, 105, II5-117, 
128, 153, 168, 193, 205, 214, 710. 
Nestorian heresy, 467. 
New Rome, see Constantinople. 
New Testament, texts, 3-61; 
effect upon doctrines of the Church 
and use as documentary proof, 3, 
53 
growth with the Church, 4; 
accepted books, 5; 
authenticity to early Christians, 6; 
Jerome’s revision, 113, 5053 
final word on questions of faith, 297. 
Nicaea, Council of: 


729 


325 A.D., 225, 228, 277; 366, 401, 435, 
463, 469-475, 484-488, 493, 508, 
509; 513, 573, 591, 624, 706; 

Synodical Letter to the Alexan- 
drians, 486; 

Canons, 473, 485-486, 499, 506, 
688; 

Creed, 96, 224, 225, 227, 228, 432, 
472, 475, 496, 498, 504, 505, 517, 
519, 535, 537, 538, 546, 547, 549, 
559, 553-555; 563, 564, 579, 592- 
595, 603, 611, 612, 617, 623, 635, 
636, 645, 648, 659, 664; 

Second Council, 551; 

Seventh Council, 843 A.D., 200. 

Noetus, 300, 304, see also Monarchian- 
ism. 

Novatian of Rome, 333, 349-355, 358, 
360, 362, 366, 360, 372, 374, 380, 
382-387, 419-420, 492, 506, 511, 
55°, 713; 

Novatianists, 349, 353, 382, 391, 393, 
395, 397, 425-426, 466, 603, 699, 
713. 

Novatus of Carthage, 333, 350, 351, 361, 
362, 367, 368, 526, 713. 

Numbers, book of, 154. 


Odenathus, 432, 439. 
Old Testament, Jerome’s revision, 113; 
see also Septuagint. 
Optatus, bishop of Mileve, 
452, 502; 
De Schismate Donatistorum, 110, 111, 
215, 353, 458-462, 541. 
Opus operatum, IIo. 
Ordinations to ecclesiastical 
formulae for, 197. 
Origen of Alexandria, 70, 73, 85, 87-91, 
93, I12-114, 160, 184, 185, 223, 
243, 299, 312, 314, 316-322, 331, 
468, 472; 
tried and expelled, 88-89, 312-317; 
apology and defense to Rome, 229, 
314-316; 
Contra Celsum, 73, 129-130, 144; 
De Principiis, 88; 
Homilies, 113; 
Hexapla, 88, 113; 
In Genesim, In Matthaeum, 89, 90, 
160, 223, 2900, 317-322. 
Ostia, 602, 603, 690. 
Ousia, 659, 660. 
Overseer, 3. 


110-112, 


offices, 


739 


Pagan, comment: on Christian preach- 

ing, 144; 
on the story of Peter, 63, 91; 
see also Ammianus Marcellinus. 

Palestine, synod in, 280, 285. 

Palmas, bishop of Pontus, 280. 

Pamphlet, anonymous Roman, quoted 
by Eusebius, 274, 278. 

Papa, 334; see also Pope. 

Ilarras, 334 

Papias of Hierapolis, 7, 18, 57, 73-74, 
79, 80, 102, 263; 

Interpretation of the Sayings of Our 
Lord, 5, 74. 

Paratus, explanation of the name 
Petrus, 135, 143. 

Paris, Council of, 540. 

Parma, dispute over bishopric, 603, 668. 

Parthia, apostle Thomas, go. 

Paschal II, bishop of Rome, 7o. 

Passio Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, 110, 
205. 

Passio Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et 
Pauli, see Martyrium Apostolo- 
rum Petri et Pawii. 

Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul, 
see Passio Apostolorum Petri et 
Pauli. 

Passion of Peter and Paul, 149. 
Passion of Peter and Paul, On the, see 
Prudentius, Peristephanon. 

Pastor, see Hermas. 

Pastoral charge, 43-47, 65, 92, 93, 325, 
326, 335, 428, 580, 666. 

Patripassians, 260, 595. 

Paul, the apostle, 7, 48, 67, 99, 126, 191, 
403, 662; 

church policy, 19, 126; 

missionary, 4, 57, 87, IOI, 102, 155, 
270, 515; 

founder of churches, 101; 

at Rome, 57, 58, 63, 72, 78, 85, 95, 
169, 193-194, 219; 

evidence of Paul’s equality, 48, 55, 
56, 168, 293; see also Apostolic 
succession: twofold tradition; 

marriage, 81; 

martyrdom, 75, 76, 83, 87, 96, 100, 
IOI, 107, 108, 116-118, 168, 181, 
205, 293, 204, 710; 

tomb, 83, 106, 108, 109, 178; 180; 

basilica, 118, 119, 216, 449; 

anniversary of death, 75, 106, 108, 
118, 119; 


INDEX 


apocryphal correspondence with Sen- 
eca, 180; 
Epistles: 4, 7, 26; 87, 265, 398, 409, 
698, 702, 705; 
Romans, 56, 57, 59, 87, 136, 147, 
IQI, 214, 310, 342, 644, 704; 
I Corinthians, 76, 87, 137, 203, 318, 
319, 678, 700; 
II Corinthians, 48, 76, 188, 190, 
319, 527, 692, 703; 
Galatians, 4, 39, 48, 54, 56, 87, 102, 
292, 293, 428, 649, 674; 
Ephesians, 87, 326, 418, 428, 600, 
703 ; 
Philippians, 67, 87, 126, 136, 153, 
214, 237; 
Colossians, 7, 678; 
Thessalonians, 87; 
I Timothy, 705; 
II Timothy, 8, 101, 126, 268, 409; 
Hebrews, 243. 
Paul, martyr, and the lapsed, 332, 340, 


345. 

Paul, bishop of Constantinople, 491- 
493, 495, 504, 505, 517, 518. 

Paul I, bishop of Rome, 200. 

Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, 
419, 432-434, 437, 442, 467, 472, 
SII, 526, 587. 

Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, 518, 550, 
564, 612-615, 617, 621-623, 625, 
647-648, 656, 659, 662, 674, 676, 
677, 682. 

Paulinus, bishop of Trier, 532, 565, 566. 

Paulinus, secretary to Ambrose, biog- 
raphy of Aurelius Ambrosius, 
606. 

“Peace of the Church,” 236, 258-260, 
277, 284, 295-296, 343, 350, 356, 
386, 397, 419-421, 525, OOr. 

Pelagius II, bishop of Rome, 326. 

Penance, sacrament of, 93, 184, 243-244, 
259, 296, 299, 301, 310, 331, 332, 
340-348, 351, 354, 370, 373, 386, 
391, 393, 410, 701, 702, 706. 

Pepin, King, 199. 

Perpetua, martyr, 108, 180. 

Peter, bishop of Alexandria, 93-94, 189, 
614, 616-622, 674, 680; 

Epistola Canonica, 93-04. 

Peter II, bishop of Alexandria, 657. 

Peter: disciple of Jesus, 7-47, 79, 273, 
274; 

the call, 9, 20, 29, 40; 


INDEX 731 


re-naming, Peter, the Rock, 10, 11, 
23, 24, 25, 31, 40, 41, 48, 55, 66, 
II2, 163, 223, 292, 295, 302, 318, 
321, 325, 328, 398, 588, 624, 627, 
659, 663, 666, 698, 701; see also 
Christ, the Rock; 
Peter, the Head, 112; see also Para- 
tus; 
the confession, 10, 12-13, 23-25, 33, 
41, 225, 227, 317, 318, 588-590, 
627, 664, 665; see also Petrine 
theory; Peter commissioned by 
Christ; Keys, doctrine of the; 
Power to bind and loose; Gates 
of hell; Pastoral charge; Confes- 
sion, universal application; 
the denial, 16, 17, 35, 42, 45, 311, 665; 
—— among the Twelve after the Resur- 
rection, 42, 47; 

primacy among the apostles, 14, 
21, 31, 34, 35, 37) 42, 43, 45) 47- 
56, 64, 92, 94, 115, 163, 189, 190, 
195, 224, 294, 403, 406, 628, 663, 
665, 666; 

—— missionary apostle, 19, 53, 54, 95, 

IOO-102, II5, 116, 158, 163; 

—— preacher in Rome, 6, 7, 8, 19, 56- 
82, 85, 92, 94-96, 98, I00, IoT, 
IO5, II5-I17, 120 Sqq., 161, 167, 
TOO, 0227, 224, O14; 

on baptism, 85, 87, 121, 204, 410; 

on asceticism, 126, 150, 197, 203; 

miracles in Rome, 133 sqq., 158 sqq., 
300; 

founder of the Roman church, 56-61, 
75-76, 99; 168, 169, 175, 190; 

length of stay in Rome, 92, 95, 98; 


—— martyr at Rome, 44-47, 59, 60, 
62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 79, 75-76, S2=. 


96, 100, IOI, 104, 105, 108, II5, 
IQ, 122, 127, 134, 153, 168, 169, 
177, 180, 197, 235, 293, 204, 710; 

vision of the Lord, 151, 177, 178, 180, 
IQI, 204; 

burial, 82, 83, 103, 104, 109, 114, 116, 
118; ad catacumbas, 106, 108, 
178, 180; - 

basilica, 64, 102-104, 106, 118, 199, 
216, 449, 571; 

“trophy,” 83, 106; 

anniversary of death, 64, 75, 106, 108, 
118, I19; 

~—— founder of the Roman episcopate, 

59) 65-66, 85, 96-119, 174; 187, 


193, 195, 201, 211, 233, 300, 328, 
348, 403, 709-711, 716: 

episcopal power, 99; 

primacy, 49, 60, 324, 627, 663, 664, 
666; 

length of episcopate, 60, 105-107, 
II4-116; 

See of Peter, 61, 111, 326, 379, 415, 
§28, 588, 627, 631, 658, 659, 662; 

seat of Peter, 111, 112, 348, 415, 606; 

chair of Peter, 24, 99, 108, 111, 162, 
164, 398, 601; anniversary of the 
chair, 107-108; see also Cathedra; 

Apostolic See, 588, 627, 666, 697, 608, 
7OI, 704, 707; 


Sais it. Epistles of, 6, 47, 56, 57, 114, 147, 


398; 

I Peter, 8, 56, 80, 90, 91, 115, 147, 295, 
410; 

if Péter; §7; 113% 


—— apocryphal tradition, 62; 


contest with Simon Magus, 48, 53, 
60, 98, I14, I15, 121-126; 
beginnings of legend, 127-133; 
legend of Simon and Peter, 133- 
152, 168-181, 196-206; 
references to legend, 153-167, 181- 


196; 

relics in evidence, 123, 176, 206- 
207; 

Actus Petri cum Simone, 135, 136 
5qq.; 


see also Actus Petri et Pauli; Pas 
sion of Peter and Paul; 


—— apocryphal writings, 120, 124; 


Preaching of Peter, 116, 124, 136, 
158-160; 

Epistoli Petri ad Jacobum, 159; 

Gospel of Peter, 60, 62, 116, 120, 
124; 

Acts of Peter, 70, 85, 116, 121, 148, 
154, 170, 171, 181, 197, 254, 287; 

Apocalypse of Peter, 116, 124; 

Judgment of Peter, 116; 

Journeys (or Circuits) of Peter, 
I2I, 124, I5Q—-I61. 


Petilianus, 445. 
Petrarch, Epistola ad Philippum de 


Vitriaco, 123, 200, 207. 


Petrine prerogative: Antioch, 19, 287; 
—— Rome: dignity of, 105, III, 117, 


230, 606; Roman bishop remains 
in his see by custom, 230, 231, 
465, 480, 527; 


732 INDEX 


appeal for exemption from civil juris- 
diction other than emperor’s, 
229, 231, 463, 669, 672; 
—— jurisdiction, (see also Power to 
bind and loose) ; 
direct, 224, 300, 312-322, 353, 605, 
607, 609, 667, 697; 
growth, 429-442; 
imperial confirmation, 229, 498, 
501, 603, 605, 625, 666-672; 
schism over jurisdiction of Rome, 
516-529; 
appellate, 225-226, 229, 271, 315, 390, 
402, 434, 489, 498, 499, 518, 520- 
522, 506, 597, 6090; 

—— administrative control and over- 
sight of the churches, 52, 221, 
222, 224, 230, 232, 233, 206, 505, 
515, 692, 697-708 ; see also Bishop 
of the bishops; 

convocation of councils, 230; 
exclusion of heretics, apostates and 
schismatics from communion, 
228, 229, 282, 417; see also the 
Lapsed; 
Eastern church excommunicated, 221- 
992.) 097 Soh oe 

—— doctrine, 92, 228, 249, 263, 282, 
300, 323, 423, 431, 592, 628, 645, 
652, 680; 

crisis in the church, 351; 
warfare over doctrine, 225, 432; 
transmission of true faith to posterity, 
221, 226, 286, 592, 645, 652, 689; 
inquiry as to, 221, 248, 250, 262, 
263, 273, 291, 204; 
orthodoxy, 39, 259, 276, 551, 598; 
influence of Augustine, 185; 
see also Faith, Roman. 

Petrine theory: Christ’s commission to 
Peter, 8, 17, 18, 42, 233, 292, 205- 
207, 392; see also Matthew, Gos- 
pel of; Keys; Power to bind and 
loose; Pastoral charge; 

basis for theory in the Gospels, 8, 17, 
18, 21, 23, 24, 42, 44, 49, 56, 65; 

direct gift of power by Peter to 
Roman bishop, 160, 164, 224, 
233-234, 206, 299, 323, 328, 348, 
356, 406, 426, 699, 707, 711; 

refuted by Tertullian, 288, 205, 297, 
302-304; by Origen, 89, 317-322, 
398; by Cyprian, 323; by Fir- 
milian, 414; 


assertion of the claims, 66, 286-447; 
391-429. 
Petronilla, 81, 198-199. 
Petronius, bishop of Bologna, 473. 
Philaster, bishop of Brescia, Diversarum 
Hereseon Liber, 121, 184-186, 
192, 
Philemon, book of, 7. 
Philemon, priest of Rome, 420, 423. 
Philip, apostle, 194. 
Philip, evangelist, 74, 276, 281 and 
Nn. 104. 
Philip, emperor, 313. 
Philippi, church at, 86; apostolic foun- 
dation, 294; 
see also Paul: Philippians; Polycarp. 
Philocalus, 108. 
Phlegon, Chronicles, 73, 95. 
Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, 500, 
587. 
Pilate, report on trial of Christ and 
letter to Tiberius, 172. 
Pistus, bishop of Alexandria, 490, 401, 
503, 510. 
Pius I, bishop of Rome, 214, 243, 240, 
260, 272,283,297 ET 0780; 
Platina, Lives of the Popes: Silvester, 
463. 
Plutarch, De Romanorum Fortuna, 214- 
215. 
Pneumatomachi, 656. 
Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, 38, 63, 86, 
221, 222, 2464249) Q57;a0t 205, 
204, 269, 270, 276, 281, 284, 203, 
363; 
Letter to the Philippians, 270. 
Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, 38, 280—- 
282. 


Pompey, bishop of Carthage, 350, 358, 


364, 407. 
Pontianus, bishop of Rome, 299, 308, 
312-314, 316, 321, 442, 712, 716. 
Pontifex Maximus, 301. . 
Pontus, Peter’s relation to church at, 
gO, IOI, 115; see also Palmas. 
Pope, 334, 344, 345; first pope in mod- 
ern sense, 274. 
Porphyry of Tyre (?), 913 
Life of Plotinus, 91-93; 
Against the Christians, ot. 
Power to bind and loose, 19, 25, 27, 154, 
157, 164, 229, 233, 287, 292, 302, 
303, 318, 321, 325, 327, 328, 406, 
414, 427, 549, 588, 589, 663, 664; 


ee ee ee a ae ee a Le a ee TN eS eee yn gE eee ee ee 


i. 


INDEX 


see also Petrine prerogatives; 
Sins, priestly remission of. 

Power to heal and to cast out devils, 
495 22,833 

Pozzuoli, bishopric, dispute over, 603, 
668, 671. 

Praxeas, 256-260; see also Tertullian, 
Adversus Praxeam. 

Preach, charge to, see Apostles. 

Precedence, question of, 13, 25, 34. 

Presbyters, 3, 59, 238, 245, 248, 283. 

Priest, 3. 

Primus, bishop of Corinth, 250. 

Priscillian, bishop of Avila, Spain, 609; 
Liber ad Damasum Episcopum, 
691-693 ; 

Priscillianists, 230, 609, 610. 
Procopius, De Bello Gothico, 206. 
Prophecy, 260, 290; see also Gifts of the 

spirit; Revelation. | 
Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicle, 603. 
Protestant claims, 24, 25, 40, 64-65. 
Proverbs, book of, 320, 321, 417. 
Prudentius, 75, 117-110; 
Peristephanon: On the Passion of 
Peter and Paul; 117-110. 
Psalms, book of, 290, 583, 631, 605, 705; 
see also Jerome; Barberini Psal- 
ter. 
Pseudo-Clement, see Clement. 
Pseudo-Isidore, see Isidore. 
Pseudo-Justinian, see Justin Martyr. 
Pseudo-Linus, see Linus. 
Puritan party, see Cathari. 


Q (Quelle), 18, 20, 26, 28, 31-33. 

Quae Gesta Sunt inter Liberium et 
Felicem Episcopos, 580, 630. 

Quartodecimanians, 247, 276. 


Recognitiones, see Clement, Pseudo-. 

Relics of the church, 176, 200, 201, 206— 
207, 449. 

Religio illicita, 330. 

Religio licita, 429. 

Restitutus, bishop of Carthage, 229, 547, 
552, 603, 608, 668. 

Revelation, book of, 45, 56, 663. 

Revelation, liberty of, 4, 255, 259, 262; 
disturbance in the church, 256. 

Revised edition of the Bible, 6. 

Rimini-Seleucia, Council of, 546-553, 
592, 594, 603, 605, 635, 639, 655, 
697, 699; 


733 


Creed, 228, 547, 550, 553, 599, 603, 
612. 


Ritual, growth of, 220. 

Rogatianus, bishop in Africa, 327. 

Rome: government removed to Milan, 
215; to Nicomedia, 443; to Con- 
stantinople (New Rome), see 
Constantinople; see also Baby- 
lon; 

—— early Christianity, 57; first Gospel 
prepared at, 8; number of Chris- 
tians, 214, 215, 353; 

—— church at, ecclesiastical districts, 
313; bishopric of the Roman 
Apostolic Church, 211-285; au- 
thority of the, 274-285; see also 
Rome, episcopate; Benevolence; 
Apostolic Succession; 

—— bishop at, civil position, 231, 463, 
606; remains in his see by cus- 
tom, 230-231, 465, 480, 527; or- 
dination of, 353; opportunity of, 
628; 

—— episcopate, origin of, 4, 5, 77, 78, 
111; see Peter, founder of Roman 
episcopate; Apostolic succession 
in church at Rome; 

demand for a head, 5; 
development of papal office, 227; 
rise of the Roman See, 77, 211 sqq.; 
see also Peter, contest with 
Simon Magus; Peter, See of; 
moral and material forces, 213- 
214,210; 216,327 
Irenaeus, church polity and papal 
office, 77; 
passing of the primitive church, see 
Victor; 
corporate 
300 ; 
increase of prestige after Callistus, 
300; 
crisis in history of ecclesiastical 
practice and dogma under Cor- 
nelius, 351; 

—— power of, 122, 160, 219, 224, 233- 
234, 239, 206, 299, 323-326, 328, 
348, 356, 609, 707; 

after Constantine, 539; 
primacy of the Roman See, 111, 126, 
187, 216, 218-227, 241, 274, 277, 
278, 294, 296, 297, 300, 312, 352- 
356, 363, 379, 397, 431, 452, 460, 
498, 528, 530-546, 596, 599, 605, 


solidarity, 222, 278, 


723A INDEX 


609, 618, 623, 624, 626, 659, 686, 
692-693, 698. 
Rome, synods at, convocation: Petrine 
prerogative, 230; 
231 or 232 A.D., 89, 312, 313, 
(Origen) ; 
251 to 253 A.D., 355, 382, 386; 
265 A.D., 224, 431, 436, 472 (defi- 
nition of the deity) ; 
313 A.D., 449, 459-460 (Donatus 
and Caecilian) ; 
339 A.D., 505; 
340 A.D., 493, 504, 556 (Athana- 
sius) ; 
367 A.D., 603, 632 (Liberius and 
Ursinus) ; 
368 A.D., 604, 638 (Ursacius and 
Valens) ; 
370 A.D., 604, 613, 634 (doctrine 
of the Trinity; Auxentius) ; 
375 A.D., 616; 
378 A.D., 597, 605, 666-672; 
382 A.D., 605, 608, 625, 626, 674, 
686, 694; 
Rufinus of Aquileia, 85, 88, 502, 552; 
translation of Pseudo-Clement Recog- 
nitiones, 160; 
Praefatio ad Recognitiones, 162; 
translation Pseudo-Clement, Epistola 
Clementis ad Jacobum, 160, 250; 
Historia Ecclesiastica, 485, 486, 488, 
552, 566, 616; 
translation of Origen, De Principiis, 
88. 


Sabellius, 300, 309, 310, 423, 434, 526; 
Sabellianism, 300, 304, 305, 421, 430, 
436, 472, 474, 494, 495, 500, 505, 
546, 550, 587, 505, 611, 616, 617, 
623, 660; see also Monarchian- 
ism. 
Sabinus, deacon of Milan, 613, 614, 636, 
642-644. 
Sabinus, History of Councils, 595. 
Sacraments, the mysteries, 701, 704; 
authority of bishop, 240; 
worthiness of administrant, 110, 444, 
454, 706; 
efficacy, 222; 
magical powers, 173. 
Samaria, church at, 19; apostolic mis- 
sion, 48, 53. 
I Samuel (King James Version), 572. 
Saragossa, Synod of, 380 A.D., 609, 692. 


Sardica, church at, 232. 
Sardica, Council of, 342 or 343 A.D., 
226, 229-231, 473, 495, 499, 516- 
531, 573, 577, 605; 
Canons 499, 520-522; 
Encyclical Letter, 522-527; 
Letter to Julius of Rome, 527-530; 
Letter to church at Alexandria, 518. 
Scriptures, development with Church, 
4; notes and commentaries by 
Origen, 88; 
revision by Jerome, 113; 
use of spurious, forbidden, 123; 
interpretation by heretics, 288; 
surrender to persecutors, 444-445, 
450, 482. 
Scythia, apostle Andrew, oo. 
Seat of Peter, see Peter, founder of the 
Roman episcopate. 
Second of Sirmium, see Sirmium. 

See of Peter, see Peter, founder of the 
Roman episcopate. i 
Seleucia, Council of, see Rimini-Seleucia. 
Semo Sancius, Sabine divinity, con- 

fusion with Simon Magus, 128; 
see also Simon Magus, statue. 
Seneca, apocryphal correspondence with 
Paul, 180. 
Septimius Severus, 88, 97. 
Septuagint, 32, 88, 113; see also Old 
Testament. 
Serapion, bishop of Antioch, 62, 120. 
Sermon on Gamblers, see De Aleatori- 
bus. 
Servus servorum Dei, 34, 231. 
Seventy, the, 30 sqq., 274. 
Shepherd of Hermas, see Hermas. 
Sibylline Oracles, 56. 
Sienkiewycz, Quo Vadis, 123, 151, 184. 
Silvester I, bishop of Rome, 102, 104, 
225, 231, 444, 445, 448, 449, 462- 
488, 562, 671, 714, 716; 
Synodical Letter of Council of Arles 
to, 480. 
Simon, heretic, 270. 
Simon Magus, see Peter, contest with 
Simon Magus; baptized by Philip, 
194; Statue, 128, 132, 189, 190, 
196, 205, 206; The Declaration, 
129; 
Simonian philosophy, 129; 
Simonians, 131, 133, 134, I04. 
Simony, 53, 124, 189-190. 
Sins, priestly remission of, 243, 296, 301, 


ee Te ee eee en, A 


INDEX 


302, 310, 311, 332, 351, 391, 406, 
413, 414, 416, 427, 551; see also 
Power to bind and loose. 

Siricius, bishop of Rome, 112, 113, 233, 
299, 310, 699-708, 716; 

Decretal, 230, 231, 697-708. 

Sirmium, see Photinus; 

Council at, 357 and 358 A.D., 544, 
546, 554, 584, 586, 592; 

creed, Second of Sirmium, 544. 

. Sixtus, see Xystus. 

Slavery, 147, 216, 217, 642. 

Smyrna, church at, 38; see also Poly- 
carp; 

apostolic 
220; 

Ignatius’ letter, 240. 

Socratés, 212, 463, 502; 

Historia Ecclesiastica, 472, 474, 485, 
§05, 515, 518, 530, 531, 591-595, 
603, 614, 629. 

Soter, bishop of Rome, 75, 249, 251, 
269, 283, 712, 716; 

Ad Corinthios [II Clement (?)], 211, 
214, 251-255; see also Clement, 
Pseudo-. 

Sozomen, 212, 463, 470, 502, 505; 

Historia Ecclesiastica, 504-506, 515—- 
519, 553, 586-588, 592, 604, 614, 
619, 622, 624. 

Spain, church in, 218; 

apostolic foundation: Paul, 57, 155; 
James, see James of Compos- 
stella ; 

relations with Rome, 229, 230, 393- 
394, 401-402, 707; 

see also Basilides, Gregory of Gra- 
nada; Hosius; Hydatius; Hime- 
rius; Priscillian; Elvira; Merida, 
Saragossa. 

Spartianus, Vita Hadriani, 73. 

State and Church: before Constantine, 
157, 232, 443; Aurelian appoints 
Roman bishop as arbiter in the 
East 215, 229, 439-441; for Perse- 
cutions, see the emperors; 

Constantine and after: 

“general bishop,” 476, 534; 

state grants of aid, 448, 450, 451, 
454-455; 

Church modelled on State, 
a9; 

appeal to Constantine under Mil- 
tiades, 451-458; 


foundation, John, 86, 


735 


Silvester’s appeal to Constantine, 
463, 671; . 
Athanasius, 475, 501; 
influence of the Christian em- 
perors, 232; 
Constans, 216; 
Constantius, 546-594; 
interference, 228; 
protest against domination by 
State, 182, 233, 455, 541, 5773 
change in policy under Valentinian 
I, 553, 604; 
jurisdiction of Church, 229, 408, 
603, 605, 625, 666-672; 
state protest against laxity in the 
Church, 599, 633; 
state ordinance imposes Roman 
faith, see Theodosius; 
decline of Rome and effect on 
Church, 233, 628. 
Stephen, bishop of Antioch, 496, 497, 
499. 
Stephen of Carthage, 350, 358, 364, 
407. 
Stephen I (Steffanus), bishop of Rome, 
O00; 291,021 7,- 215,223,0224> 228, 
229, 355, 379, 391-423, 431, 433, 
440, 489, 713, 716. 
Stephen II, bishop of Rome, 199. 
Suetonius, 57, 69, 125, 127, 128, 130; 
De Vita Caesarum, 57: Nero, 69, 125, 
130. 
Sulpicius Severus, 182, 185; 
Life of St. Martin, 185; 
Chronica, 185, 193, 548, 566, 609. 
Syncellus, 97, 100. 
Syria, church in, 240; 
apostolic foundation, 220: Peter, 158; 
see also Ignatius; Hegesippus; Cyril 
of Jerusalem; Paul of Samosata; 
Eustathius; Apollinarius; Theoc- 
tistus; Theodoret; Timothy of 
Berytus; Meletius; Paulinus; An- 
tioch; Jerusalem; Palestine; 
Tyre. 


Tacitus, Annales, 214. 

Tarsus, Council at, suggested, 555. 

Tatian, Diatessaron, 215, 279, 287-288. 

Teaching, the, see Didache. 

Teachings of the Apostles, see Didas- 
calia Apostolorum. 

Telesphorus (Telesforus), bishop of 
Rome, 249, 269, 283, 711, 716. 


736 


Terentius, 648-649. 

Tertullian of Carthage, 38, 84-87, 112, 
I29, 212, 223, 243, 249, 256-261, 
265, 286-295, 297, 209, 301-304, 
317, 322, 324, 329, 373, 408, 472, 
559; 

De Anima, 146; 

Ad Uxores, 311; 

Adversus Marcionem, 87, 295, 515; 

De Pudicitia, 297, 301-304, 3343 

Apologeticus adversus Gentes, 84, 
WU Ls2 als 

Scorprace, 85, 288, 295; 

De Baptismo, 87; 

De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 38, 
84, 86, 87, 112, 132, 258-259, 286, 
288-295, 384; 

Adversus Praxeam, 256, 259-260. 

Testament of Hezekiah, see Ascensio 
Jesaiae. 

Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea in 
Palestine, 365. 

Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, 182, 212, 
471, 502, 552, 622, 674; 

Haereticarum Fabularum Compen- 
dium, 187, 196; 

Historia Ecclesiastica, 186, 471, 472, 
547; 572-576, 582-583, 604, 614, 
615, 673-677, 686-689. 

Theodosius, Collection of the Deacon, 

408. 

Theodosius the Great, 117, 184, 508, 
600, 608, 619-621, 623-626, 680, 
684, 685, 688, 689; 

baptized at Thessalonica by Acholius, 
619; 

Edict of February 27, 380: 227, 610, 
675; 

Codex Theodosianus, 212, 540, 602, 
625, 633, 671, 675. 

Theodotus of Byzantium, 215, 260, 272, 
275, 279, 299; see also Adop- 
tionists. 

Theophilus of Antioch, 37. 

Theophilus, bishop of Caesarea, 280, 


284. 
Thessalonica, See of, see Acholius; 
Theodosius. 


Thomas, apostle, at Parthia, 90; apocry- 
phal Acts, 121, 141; Gospel, 120. 

Tiberius, emperor, 105, 107, 126, 166, 
710; 

Timothy of Alexandria, 621-623, 625, 
626. 


INDEX 


Timothy, bishop of Berytus, 618, 673, 


674. 

Timothy, disciple of Paul, 136, 293; see 
also Paul: Timothy I and II. 

Titus, book of, 270, 692. 

Tomus, 604, 657. 

Tradition of the Roman church, see 
Apostolic succession and tradi- 
tion. 

Traditor, 450, 451, 484. 

Trajan, emperor, 38, 71, 270, 330. 

Trent, Council of, 6. 

Trinity, doctrine of the, 27, 96, 183, 303, 
436, 550, 555, 604, 611, 613, 610, 
635, 6590-661, 680, 683; 

baptism in name of, 26, 110, 290, 466, 
482; 
Trinitarians, 300, 611, 620. 

Tu es Petrus, 19, 66; see also Peter, re- 
naming. 

Tiibingen School of New ‘Testament 
criticism, 125. 

Twofold tradition, see Apostolic succes- 
sion. 

Tyana, synod at, 554, 656. 

Tyre, see Cassius; Methodius; 
phyry; 

Council at 335 A.D., 475, 476, 490, 
491, 496, 497, 503, 506, 510, 510, 
523, 535, 540, 543, 573. 


Por- 


Unitarianism, 300, 304-305, 309, 310;. 
see also Monarchianism. 

Urban I (Urbanus), bishop of Rome, 
312, .%52,) 7s 

Urbanus, confessor, 383. 

Ursacius, bishop of Singidunum in 
Moesia, 497, 500-503, 519, 520, 
531-533, 543, 546-548, 552; 566, 
571, 573, 577, 578, 584, 587, 604, 
611, 638; 

Ursacius and Valens, Confessions, 532. 

Ursinus, of Rome, 600-604, 607, 629- 
632, 660, 667, 669, 671; 

Ursinians, 597, 600-603, 
671. 
Usuard, Martyrology, 618. 


605, 606, 


Vacancy in the Roman bishopric, 215, 
320, 370, 372. 
Vaison, Synod at, 442 A.D., 161. 
Valens, emperor, 226, 227, 553-554, 612, 
618, 633, 637, 638; 
Rescript to Damasus, 633-634. 


INDEX 


Valens, bishop of Mursae in Pannonia, 
497, 498, 500-503, 519, 520, 531- 
533, 535; 538, 543, 546-548, 552, 
563-564, 566, 571, 573, 577; 578, 
584, 587, 604, 611, 638; 
. Ursacius and Valens, Confessions, 532. 
Valentinian I, emperor, 554, 600-603, 
605, 611, 629, 631, 633; 
Rescript to Damasus, 633-634. 
Valentinian II, 183, 218, 606, 608, 610, 
634, 666; 
Rescript of 378 A.D., 671; 
Edict of February 27, 380 A.D., 227, 
619, 675. 
Valentinus, 214, 258, 263, 269, 272, 290, 
409. 
Valerian, emperor, 106, 389, 390, 422, 
‘425, 420, 432. 
Valerian of Aquileia, 625, 644, 687. 
Vandals, 467. 
Vatican, 83, 113, I14, 116, 178, 170. 
Verona, bishopric of, 218. 
Viaticum, 702. 
Victor, bishop of Rome, 38, 211, 214, 


737 


217, 221, 223, 228, 246, 259, 264, 
275, 277) 278, 280, 282, 295-299, 
308-309, 354, 391, 397, 425, 426, 
440, 712, 717. 

Vincent of Capua, 470, 499, 536, 556, 
562, 636. 

Vision of Isaiah, see Ascensio Jesaiae. 

Vitalis of Antioch, 615, 648, 659, 
662. 

Vulgate, 6, 114, 595. 


Xanthippe and Polyxena, see Acta Xan- 
thippis et Polyxenae. 

Xystus I (Sixtus), bishop of Rome, 249, 
260,233,721; “716. 

Xystus II, bishop of Rome, 420-428, 
442, 449, 713, 716. 


Zacchaeus, bishop of Caesarea, 162, 167, 
202. 
Zenobia, queen, 432, 433, 439. 


_Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, 82, 83, 


260, 278, 295-312, 712, 716. 
Zosimus, bishop of Rome, 233, 499. 


besa, 


“ 


ir a 


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fessor of Semitic Literature, Princeton University. 


William of Tyre: History of Things Done In the Lands 
Beyond the Sea. By Mrs. W. M. Babcock, Department 
of Latin, and A. C. Krey, Professor of History, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota. 


Selections From Medieval Authors. By Lynn Thorndike, 
Professor of History, Columbia University. 


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